Assault on Democracy

The interwar years saw the greatest reversal of political liberalization

and democratization in modern history. Why and how did dictatorship
proliferate throughout Europe and Latin America in the 1920s and
1930s? Blending perspectives from history, comparative politics, and
cognitive psychology, Kurt Weyland argues that the Russian
Revolution sparked powerful elite groupings that, fearing communism,
aimed to suppress imitation attempts inspired by Lenin’s success. Fears
of communism fueled doubts about the defensive capacity of liberal
democracy, strengthened the ideological right, and prompted the rise of
fascism in many countries. Yet, as fascist movements spread, their
extremity and violence also sparked conservative backlash that often
blocked their seizure of power. Weyland teases out the differences
across countries, tracing how the resulting conflicts led to the impos-
ition of fascist totalitarianism in Italy and Germany and the installation
of conservative authoritarianism in Eastern and Southern Europe and
Latin America.

Kurt Weyland is Mike Hogg Professor in Liberal Arts in the

Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin. He is the
author of five other books and approximately fifty journal articles and
book chapters. His book, Making Waves (Cambridge University Press,
2014) won Best Book Award from APSA’s Comparative
Democratization section.
 Assault on Democracy
Communism, Fascism, and Authoritarianism
During the Interwar Years

KURT WEYLAND
University of Texas at Austin
 University Printing House, Cambridge 2 8, United Kingdom
One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York,  10006, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne,  3207, Australia
314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre,
New Delhi – 110025, India
79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108844338
: 10.1017/9781108943642
© Kurt Weyland 2021
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2021
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.
 978-1-108-84433-8 Hardback
 978-1-108-94804-3 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy
of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
 Contents

List of Tables page vii

Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi

1 Introduction: The Puzzle: Reverse Waves of Political Reaction 1

2 Theory: The Double Deterrent Effect and the Bounds
of Rationality 39
3 The Soviet Precedent and the Wave of Isomorphic
Emulation Efforts 75
4 The Suppression of Isomorphic Emulation Efforts and Its
Limited Regime Effects 101
5 Persistence of the Communist Threat and Rising Appeal
of Fascism 131
6 The German Exception: Emulating Full-Scale Fascism 158
7 The Spread of Fascist Movements – Yet of
Authoritarian Regimes 193
8 Conservative–Fascist Relations and the Autocratic
Reverse Wave 228
9 The Edges of the Autocratic Wave: Battered Democracy
and Populist Authoritarianism 291
10 Conclusion 314

Bibliography 333
Index 367

v
 Tables

1.1 Installation of reactionary autocracies during

the interwar years page 4
2.1 Pathways to reactionary autocracy during
the interwar years 64

vii
 Preface

Every German who grew up in the post–WWII era faced the impossible
task of coming to grips with our terrible recent past, the massive destruc-
tion and self-destruction, the unspeakable atrocities and crimes. Although
I escaped to the United States and turned to the study of Latin America, it
was unavoidable to return to this task. After I designed my own theoret-
ical approach to political regime change and tested it by examining a
range of other cases in my last two books, I finally felt ready. This study
therefore holds a very deep personal meaning. For this reason, it is
dedicated to my late father, Dr. Helmut Weyland, who grew up during
the interwar years and who at the current age of my sons had already
undergone experiences, as a regular soldier and then a POW, that he
would spend the rest of his life trying to cope with. The book is also
dedicated to my sons, Andreas and Nikolas Weyland, who – decades
later – still live under the shadow of the German past.

ix
 Acknowledgments

Because this book pulls together so many strands of my research and

thinking, there are many people who contributed, in various ways. For
excellent comments and interesting conversations over the years, I am
grateful to Zoltan Barany, Mark Beissinger, Nancy Bermeo, Douglas
Biow, Daniel Brinks, Giovanni Capoccia, Zachary Elkins, Federico
Finchelstein, John Gerring, Kenneth Greene, Seva Gunitsky, Bert
Hoffmann, Jacint Jordana, Brigitte Kaster, Fabrice Lehoucq, Raúl
Madrid, Rose McDermott, António Costa Pinto, Peter Rudolf, Daniel
Ziblatt, and especially Fernando Rosenblatt, Andrew Stein, and Wendy
Hunter. Moreover, I benefited greatly from presentations at the German
Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg; Harvard University; Max
Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity,
Göttingen; Princeton University; Sciences Po, Paris; Universidad Diego
Portales, Santiago de Chile; Universidade de São Paulo – Leste;
Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona; and Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin.
Furthermore, I would like to thank Cameron Daddis, Robert Judkins,
Orvil Matthews, and especially Sara Doskow of Cambridge University
Press for all their contributions to this book.

xi
 1

Introduction

The Puzzle: Reverse Waves of Political Reaction

The “third wave of democratization” (Huntington 1991) fueled great

hopes of continuing political progress at the end of the twentieth century.
But then, to observers’ surprise, the third millennium has quickly turned
into an age of anxiety. In recent years, serious concerns about the
vibrancy and sustainability of liberal democracy have proliferated
(Bermeo 2016; Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018; Mounk 2018; Sunstein
2018). The sources of citizens’ worsening discontent, which seems to
create room for undemocratic machinations, are manifold. Economic
globalization has ravaged major industrial sectors and turned whole
regions into rust belts. Social inequality keeps rising inexorably, reinfor-
cing fears of status loss among the white working class (Gest 2016) and
exacerbating worries about ever more profound and wide-ranging cul-
tural change (Hochschild 2016; Norris and Inglehart 2019). Terrorist
attacks loom. Mass migration threatens to undermine the cultural and
ethnic homogeneity prized by substantial population segments (Eatwell
and Goodwin 2018). As a result, political liberalism is faced with increas-
ing criticism, if not rejection, and populist movements are sprouting
across the globe.
Populism in turn has inherent authoritarian tendencies, whether it
combines with exclusionary nationalism in its right-wing versions or
whether it announces participatory promises but, it uses plebiscitarian
practices in its left-wing versions. After all, the personalistic leaders
around whom populism revolves ceaselessly pursue power concentration
to solidify their precarious political sustenance, which often lacks organ-
izational foundations. To gain hegemony, they systematically try to bend
or break institutional checks and balances and thus dismantle the

1
2 Introduction

safeguards with which liberal, pluralist democracy forestalls the abuse of

state power (Levitsky and Loxton 2013; Weyland 2018).
The global advance of populism has aroused fears of democratic
backsliding even in the West’s seemingly consolidated democracies.
With Donald Trump’s election, these worries gripped especially the
United States, the world’s oldest democracy (Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018;
Mounk 2018; Sunstein 2018). While traditionally regarded as unchal-
lengeable and immune to threats, the US system might in fact be turning
precarious because partisan polarization has intensified for years and
signs of serious norm erosion and of authoritarian tendencies have
appeared (Ginsberg and Shefter 2002; Hetherington and Weiler 2009;
Dionne, Ornstein, and Mann 2017). As malaise has spread, observers
have seen the specter of the interwar years rise again, when liberal
democracy faced grave peril. After all, the authoritarian and fascist wave
of the 1920s and 1930s engulfed not only Europe’s more “backward”
South and East (Janos 1982; Berend 1998) but also its modern center,
especially Germany; and it brought unprecedented challenges even for
some longstanding Western democracies, especially France and Belgium
(comprehensive overviews in Bosworth 2009c and Doumanis 2016; on
France, see Soucy 1986, 1995).
To assess the current dangers facing liberal democracy, numerous
scholars have therefore invoked lessons derived from the autocratic
reverse wave of the interwar years. In his reflections On Tyranny, for
instance, Snyder (2017: 18–20, 23–25, 39–44) has frequently pointed to
Hitler’s National Socialism. His in-depth studies of Germany (Ziblatt
2017) have helped Ziblatt develop scenarios of how democracy could
unravel in the United States (Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018: 145–212).
Similarly, German social scientists have examined whether “Weimar
conditions” (Wirsching, Kohler, and Wilhelm 2018) may be reemerging.
Moreover, Connolly (2017: 1–30) has compared “the rhetorical strategies
of Hitler and Trump,” while Stanley (2018) and Traverso (2019) have
highlighted risks of “fascism” as well.
These concerns about a new cycle of illiberal involution and demo-
cratic reversal give acute relevance to an in-depth analysis of the undemo-
cratic riptide of the 1920s and 1930s. While observers do not fear a
complete repetition of history, particularly a resurrection of full-scale
fascism, the interwar experiences laid bare vulnerabilities that could
turn fatal to liberal democracy again. Especially worrisome are the
cases when autocratic rule was not imposed by coup, but when democ-
racy was hollowed out, undermined, and eventually destroyed by
 Introduction 3

governments that had initially won power in formally legal ways, based
on substantial support in free and fair elections (Levitsky and Ziblatt
2018: 3–10).
The prime example is, of course, Germany’s National Socialism, which
in the early 1930s achieved such drastic vote gains that in a democracy
wrecked by ideological polarization and battered by economic collapse,
government formation without them seemed no longer feasible. As soon
as conservative power holders reluctantly appointed Hitler as chancellor
(Turner 1996), he quickly obliterated the stranglehold that established
elites sought to impose on him, dismantled democracy from the inside,
and installed brutal totalitarianism (Sauer 1974; Bracher 1979). The
speed with which the Nazi leader accomplished this feat suggested the
inherent fragility of liberal democracy, which tends to grant room of
maneuver even to its sworn enemies. Consequently, democracy can prove
defenseless when growing portions of the electorate choose to support
antidemocratic forces. While much less reactionary in ideology and much
less dictatorial in political intentions, could a populist leader like Trump
exploit these internal vulnerabilities for illiberal and increasingly authori-
tarian purposes as well?
Given these concerns about democracy’s potential self-destruction, it is
important to re-examine the autocratic wave of the interwar years, the
single most striking, momentous, and consequential reversal of liberal-
democratic progress that the world has ever suffered (Huntington 1991:
14–18; Berg-Schlosser 2009: 44–48; Wejnert 2014: 13–17, 148–49, 164;
Kailitz 2017: 40–44). The main question of the present book is what
caused this surprising turnaround in the historical trend. After all, the
nineteenth century had witnessed a seemingly unstoppable advance of
political liberalism and democracy. Popular sovereignty, parliamentary
responsibility, and suffrage extensions had spread slowly but surely in
Europe, especially the continent’s Northwestern corner.
The WWI and its immediate aftermath had brought an additional
progressive surge as countries that were already advanced, such as
Britain and Sweden, had completed their transitions to democracy.
More importantly, the defeat of the four autocratic empires in Europe’s
Eastern half had allowed for democracy to sprout in less hospitable soil.
The new countries emerging from Habsburg, Hohenzollern, Ottoman,
and Romanov rule adopted democratic constitutions and started to
hold elections (see recently Kershaw 2015: 121–34; Gunitsky 2017:
77–87; Kailitz 2017). In the nineteenth and early twentieth century,
political liberalism had also gained a substantial foothold in South
4 Introduction

 . Installation of reactionary

autocracies during the interwar years

1919 Hungary
1922 Italy
1923 Bulgaria
1923 Spain
1926 Poland
1926 Lithuania
1926 Portugal
1928 Albania
1929 Yugoslavia
1932 Portugal
1933 Germany
1933 Austria
1934 Estonia
1934 Latvia
1934/35 Bulgaria
1936 Greece
1936/39 Spain
1937 Brazil
1938 Romania

America (Przeworski 2009), where Southern Cone nations, in particular,

had begun to select their governments through free and fair elections
(Smith 2012: 54–57). Thus, there had been so much progress!
Soon, however, the historical trend turned around: From the early
1920s onward, many of the new democracies fell to the onslaught of
authoritarianism and fascism, both in Europe and South America. The
widespread breakdown of liberal systems (which had not always reached
full democracy) was striking. Political liberty suffered a massive setback.
Moreover, types of dictatorship spread that were firmer and fiercer than
earlier forms of autocratic rule. In particular, totalitarianism took hold in
a Bolshevist version in Russia, and in fascist versions in Italy and
Germany. This new regime type differed from de-politicizing, hierarchical
authoritarianism in its plebiscitarian dynamism, ideological ambition,
quest for absolute control, and unbounded violence, most clearly in the
Russian and German cases (Linz 2000, 2002). Thus, the turn away from
liberal democracy was shocking in its breadth as well as in its depth. This
reversal was unusual both in the large number of countries falling under
autocracy and in the systematic, harsh destruction of political liberty and
even human lives in some of those countries. Table 1.1 summarizes this
stunning reverse wave.
 Main Argument 5

 :    

Why did the modern world suffer such a dramatic setback – an unpreced-
ented turnaround in the longstanding trend toward liberal-democratic
progress? As Chapter 2 will discuss, a variety of problems and challenges
battered pluralist democracies during the interwar era. Ethnic tensions
often ran high, especially in the new nations carved out of the carcasses of
the defeated empires. Hyperinflation in the early 1920s and then the
Great Depression brought mass despair and pulverized the performance
legitimacy of fledgling democracies. Dysfunctional institutional designs,
such as the hyper-parliamentary constitutions of the Baltic countries,
weakened governability. In fact, new democracies are inherently weak
and prone to breakdown (Huntington 1991: 15–21; Gunitsky 2017: 6,
32–37). The coincidence and interaction of these difficulties proved espe-
cially deleterious. In particular, institutional deficiencies made it difficult
to cope effectively with ethnic conflicts and economic challenges. In sum,
liberal democracies bore an unusually heavy problem load, as Kershaw
(2015) has recently highlighted again. No wonder that many collapsed
under these multiple pressures.
But the interwar reverse wave was so sweeping that these factors
cannot provide a sufficient explanation. Democracy broke down in
brand-new and in longer-standing liberal regimes; in consolidated and
in recently created nations; in the presence and in the absence of ethnic
conflicts; in countries that had suffered hyperinflation and in many that
had been spared; and before as well as after the Great Depression’s onset,
as Table 1.1 shows. This diversity in conditions, yet commonality of
outcome suggests that in addition to specific risk factors, there were other,
common sources of vulnerability and threat.
As innumerable historical investigations demonstrate, a fundamental
shared problem that lay at the root of the authoritarian and fascist reverse
wave was the specter of communism, which the Bolshevist Revolution of
1917 had given enormous salience.1 The unexpected ease with which the
Tsars’ centuries-old autocracy dissolved and soon thereafter Lenin’s
Communists grabbed power sent shockwaves through Europe and
around the world (see recently Daly and Trofimov 2017; Rinke and
Wildt 2017). If a minority of radicals could install a dictatorship,

1
See, among many others, Carsten (1982: 176, 182–83, 187–88); Payne (1995: 76–78);
Paxton (2005: 19, 44, 60–61, 68, 70, 81, 84, 88–89, 102–5, 110, 116, 196); Gerwarth and
Horne (2012a: 42, 44, 51); and Kershaw (2015: 229–30).
6 Introduction

maintain control in a brutal civil war, and impose a host of profound,

hugely costly changes, then perhaps these stunning transformations could
find replication elsewhere. Observers therefore inferred that the socio-
political order in a wide range of countries might well be more precarious
and vulnerable to extremist assaults than established elites, middle classes,
and broader segments of the citizenry had long assumed.
Due to this suggestive inference, the Bolshevist precedent deeply
affected political actors of all stripes (Furet 1999: 62–68; Eley 2002:
152–55; McAdams 2017: chap. 4). Many left-wingers felt inspired
and jumped to the conclusion that socialist revolution was feasible
across a vast swath of nations. If Lenin had accomplished this feat
against all odds in backward Russia, then similar changes should be
possible elsewhere. Accordingly, the Russian Revolution encouraged a
wide range of leftists to pursue similar revolutionary projects; the most
radical groupings quickly initiated armed assaults to repeat Lenin’s
storming of the Winter Palace. Therefore, there was a wave of isomorphic
emulation efforts across Europe and the world (Fayet 2014), with
multiple efforts in Germany, communists’ main target (Angress 1972;
Broué 2006).
Yet while – and because – Lenin’s unlikely success inspired determined
attempts at replication, it also instilled deep fear among status-quo
defenders, ranging from the hardcore right to the moderate left, such as
Germany’s mainstream Sozialdemokratische Partei (SPD; Merz 1995;
Wirsching 2007). For these variegated sectors, communist revolution held
prospects of enormous losses, including catastrophic economic destruc-
tion – so evident in the nascent Soviet Union – and serious setbacks to the
liberal and democratic progress that many nations had already achieved.
Accordingly, nations in Western and Northern Europe that had long left
monarchic oppression behind were unwilling to submit to a self-
appointed communist vanguard. And why would countries that had only
recently emerged from autocratic empires want to fall under even fiercer,
totalitarian domination? The determination to avoid radical revolution
motivated a wide range of sectors, including powerful elites and large
proportions of the citizenry, to combat Lenin’s disciples and followers
with all means, including coercion. Radicals’ armed attacks that quickly
sought to imitate the Russian Communists drew particularly brutal
repression. Thus, the initial wave of emulative revolution provoked an
immediate wave of counterrevolution.
The violent defeat of communists’ precipitous uprisings, however, did
not erase the fears of status-quo defenders, especially of established elites
 Main Argument 7

and political conservatives. After all, left-wingers inspired by the Russian

Revolution continued to agitate and organize across the globe. Moreover,
the Soviet Union promoted world revolution and supported communists’
organizational efforts, conspiracies, and uprisings (Vatlin and Smith
2014; McAdams 2017). Therefore, in the eyes of many observers, espe-
cially right-wingers, the radical-left threat persisted.
These profound fears of left-wing extremism provided the most funda-
mental impetus for the imposition of authoritarianism and fascism in so
many countries during the interwar years. Weakened by institutional
deficits, ethnic conflicts, and economic crises, many liberal democracies
looked to worried establishment sectors like easy prey for communist
revolutionaries. The openness and dispersed authority of pluralistic
regimes seemed to provide ample opportunities that the enemies of lib-
erty, property, and family could exploit. To combat these threats, a
determined concentration of power was required. Especially among
right-wingers, support for autocratic rule therefore grew. The body poli-
tick needed substantial fortification to withstand radical-left subversion
or assault.
This powerful backlash to the perceived threat of communism gener-
ated the most basic impulse for the reverse wave of the 1920s and 1930s.
Fearful of the radical left, powerful elites and substantial population
segments embraced the undemocratic recipes of the right in many coun-
tries. To immunize the nation against left-wing extremism, important
sectors adopted the conservative advocates of authoritarianism or the
violent fighters of fascism. The Bolshevist revolution and the efforts of
Lenin’s disciples to spread it across the world unleashed strong deterrent
effects, which helped to prompt the imposition of anti-communist dicta-
torships. This reactionary groundswell proved much more potent than the
world-revolutionary agitation of the radical left.
But whereas other counterrevolutionary waves advanced in a straight-
forward backlash dynamic and brought fairly uniform outcomes, the
spread of authoritarianism and fascism during the interwar years pro-
ceeded in complex ways along divergent paths. In most reactionary rip-
tides, a perceived challenge drew a similar regime response; for instance,
to forestall the spread of radicalism inspired by the Cuban Revolution,
militaries imposed anti-communist dictatorships in South America during
the 1960s and 1970s (Weyland 2019). By contrast, the specter of
Bolshevism did not prompt the installation of the same kind of autocracy
during the interwar years; instead, regime outcomes differed across
countries.
8 Introduction

The main reason for this diversity stemmed from the emergence of
fascism in Italy, which offered a novel option for combating the radical
left and strengthening the polity against perceived danger (Hamilton
1971; Sassoon 2007; Bosworth 2009a). In fact, this new regime type
appeared as the single most potent antidote to Marxist socialism
(Markwick 2009). But fascism also stirred up unease and concern among
many right-wing counterrevolutionaries, especially conservative elites
(Blinkhorn 1990). After all, its unaccountable charismatic leadership,
violent dynamism, and strong totalitarian ambitions threatened to over-
turn sociopolitical hierarchy as well. Powerful establishment sectors
therefore saw fascism with profound ambivalence. While they sought to
use extreme-right movements against their leftist enemies, they also
wanted to keep them under control and ensure their own domination
by imposing demobilizational, exclusionary authoritarianism.
This elite ambivalence toward fascism caused a great deal of compli-
cations and conflicts during the interwar reverse wave. The right-wing
backlash against communism advanced along divergent pathways. The
specific outcome depended on the relative strength of conservative estab-
lishment sectors, who sought stability through authoritarian rule, versus
fascist upstarts, who pushed hard for a totalitarian transformation. In
turn, this balance of sociopolitical clout depended on the modernization
of economy and society.
Traditional elites were relatively weak and fascist movements had the
greatest opportunities for expansion in modern countries such as
Germany. Only this advanced nation therefore followed Mussolini’s foot-
steps and installed a full-scale fascist regime on its own. By contrast, in the
less developed East and South of Europe and in Latin America, traditional
elites maintained much greater clout, for instance through clientelistic
control over the rural population. Fascist movements therefore had less
space for mobilizing support. The weakness of liberal democracy in these
settings allowed conservative establishment sectors to impose hierarch-
ical, exclusionary authoritarianism. And they did so not only to forestall
potential threats from the radical left, but also – and often more urgently –
to rein in fascist upstarts or prevent these violent hordes from seizing
power. Conservative authoritarianism thus blocked totalitarian fascism.
Unusually, thus, the interwar reverse wave was deeply affected by a
second deterrent effect, nested in the broad backlash against
communism. While right-wingers of all stripes often cooperated in com-
bating the radical and not-so-radical left, they then divided over the
counter-model to install. Whereas conservative elites tried to impose
 Main Argument 9

non-mobilizational authoritarianism, fascist movements pushed hard for

mobilizational totalitarianism. Fearful of subjugation by fascism’s
omnipotent leaders, conservative sectors were determined to keep their
erstwhile allies under control and subordinate them to conventional types
of dictatorship. Thus, the widespread move toward autocracy during the
1920s and 1930s arose not only from widespread fear of communism,
but also from establishment sectors’ fear of fascism.
The double deterrent effect was the distinctive mechanism driving this
riptide of democratic breakdown. This nested backlash dynamic had
particular force and impact in countries such as Austria, Estonia, and
Romania, where in the mid- to late 1930s fascist movements achieved a
drastic upsurge and seemed poised to win power, primarily by electoral
means. Fear of a fascist takeover, exacerbated by the Nazis’ recent power
grab in Germany, then prompted preemptive coups that brought repres-
sion of the radical right and, in Austria, of the socialist left as well
(Bermeo 2003: 43–45, 50, 235). In these countries, thus, liberal democ-
racy fell not in direct reaction against the communist left, but against the
fascist right. The fight among the enemies of the left turned lethal for
political liberty as the conservative right suppressed its extremist brethren
with authoritarian coercion, including brutal force.
By contrast, where fascist movements remained small and weak, savvy
advocates of authoritarianism squashed political liberalism by enlisting
them as auxiliaries, primarily against the radical left, as in Spain. Yet as
soon as these violent extremists had helped to defeat the revolutionary
threat and to impose authoritarian rule, the new dictators subdued their
hapless allies to their own domination and forcefully resisted the trans-
formation of their non-mobilizational, hierarchical regimes into
dynamic totalitarianism.
Ironically, to appease domestic fascists and to reinforce their own
preeminence, these authoritarian rulers often imported bits and pieces of
Mussolini’s and later Hitler’s innovations, such as single parties and
paramilitary formations. But transplanted from the hothouses of energetic
totalitarianism to the barren sterility of exclusionary authoritarianism,
these alien elements soon withered away or were starved of resources
once these scheming dictators sat firmly in the saddle. Thus, these foreign
imports remained empty shells and never bridged the gulf between the
two distinct types of non-democracy.
In sum, autocracy advanced along various paths during the interwar
years. While all right-wingers were driven by fears of the communist left,
they strongly, if not violently disagreed on the most effective and
10 Introduction

promising countermeasures. Due to this double deterrent effect, the rela-

tive strength of conservative authoritarians versus fascist totalitarians
caused forks in the road. Two fairly broad paths, propelled by preventive
coups or by uneven alliances,2 led to conservative authoritarianism, while
one narrow path, at a higher level of modernity, opened up the gates to
the fascist hell. In fact, this latter trajectory, taken – after Italy’s creation
of fascism – only by Germany, hurried elites in other countries along the
authoritarian pathway by aggravating dread of fascism and prompting
harsh countermeasures, such as preemptive coups. Much of the autocratic
wave of the 1920s and 1930s thus emanated from the double deterrent
effect, driven by fear of the communist left as well as the fascist right.
There was, however, a fourth, more salutary path. After all, at least
until the outbreak of WWII, liberal democracy survived in the North and
West of Europe (Cornell, Møller, and Skaaning 2017, 2020), though
sometimes battered. England, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia remained
unscathed, while Belgium and France managed to overcome strong chal-
lenges from fascist movements. Moreover, Finland escaped from a near-
death experience as mainstream elites combated the radical left and thus
satisfied the main demand of a powerful fascist grouping, which then
quickly lost support again. Last not least, Czechoslovakia maintained
democracy because threats from domestic extremists and a dangerous
international environment prompted sustained cooperation among a
cartel of fairly well-organized parties. Thus, a number of more or less
bruised democracies withstood the autocratic riptide.
In conclusion, the reverse wave of the interwar years advanced in
unusually complex and differentiated ways. Rather than sweeping across
Europe and other regions in one uniform diffusion process, it unfolded in
jumbles and ripples. This diversity arose from the intersection of various
demonstration and deterrent effects. Radicals of the left sought to emulate
Lenin’s success, yet this threat reinforced the urge of extremists of the
right to replicate Mussolini and then Hitler’s feats. In turn, both of these
ambitious projects, be it communist revolution or fascist totalitarianism,
instilled deep fear among the conservative establishment, which sought
protection by installing authoritarian rule. Thus, as the rise of fascism was

2
Linz (2002: 12–13) also distinguishes different paths of regime developments during the
interwar years, but does not highlight preemptive coups as a separate path. But because
these anti-fascist coups were decisive for effecting regime change, whereas conservatives’
use of fascist auxiliaries strengthened already-existing authoritarian regimes, as in
Portugal, it makes sense for the present analysis of democratic breakdowns to emphasize
this distinction.
 The Tragedy of the Interwar Years 11

fueled by the deterrent effect of communism, so the move to conservative

authoritarianism resulted to a good extent from the deterrent effect of
fascism. In many countries, political liberty was sacrificed because deep
fears of left-wing and/or right-wing extremism motivated dramatic efforts
to avert apparently imminent losses through the imposition of autocratic
stability. Due to the double deterrent effect, what spread during the 1920s
and 1930s was neither communism nor, mostly, fascism, but mainly
conservative authoritarianism.

     :  

  
In propelling the interwar reverse wave in its unusual complexity, the
double deterrent effect also caused a striking paroxysm of violence and
cruelty. Whereas Europe’s long nineteenth century (1815–1914) had seen
few instances of mass slaughter, the subsequent thirty years brought
orgies of brutality, even in domestic politics (see recently Gerwarth
2016). As scholars commonly bemoan, sociopolitical forces of all stripes
did not merely pursue their self-interests and ideological causes with cold-
blooded, amoral calculation. Instead, they often overshot the violence
that seemed necessary for achieving their goals, used disproportionate
force, and engaged in massive overkill, as Chapter 4 documents. This
excess of violence and penchant for cruelty turned the interwar years into
a particularly tragic era in Europe’s modern history.
This willingness to unleash all-out coercion prevailed across the ideo-
logical spectrum. Certainly, however, the resource advantages of the right
led to much greater victimization among the left, which paid a terrible
price for its radical initiatives. White terror outdid red terror by substan-
tial margins (Kershaw 2015: 107, 133, 304; Gerwarth 2016: 72–75, 99,
125, 131, 139–40, 151–52, 166–67; Jones 2016: 5, 256, 287, 326–27;
Traverso 2016: 46–48, 56), as exemplified by the heinous murder of Rosa
Luxemburg, days after the haphazard “Spartakus Uprising” had already
been suppressed (see Chapter 4). The human cost and political damage
inflicted by counterrevolutionary crackdowns were much worse than the
losses imposed during revolutionary adventures (Read 2008: 45, 71,
75–78, 122–23, 155). Interestingly, however, excessive violence was
used by the right not only against the radical left but also in struggles
between different currents of the right, especially by conservative authori-
tarians against fascist totalitarians. Romania’s royal dictatorship,
for instance, massacred hundreds of fascists in a countrywide campaign
12 Introduction

that, according to a specialist, “was less a reflection of rational

calculations than of the elementary fear of the king for his own life”
(Heinen 1986: 418).
To account for these widespread overreactions and for their lopsided
incidence, this book employs the bounded rationality approach to waves
of political regime change that my last two volumes have developed
(Weyland 2014, 2019). Specifically, the present study conducts an out-
of-sample assessment of my basic explanation of the Latin American coup
wave of the 1960s and 1970s (Weyland 2019). That analysis documented
the striking severity of the backlash against the Cuban Revolution, which
drove the proliferation of conservative military rule, and attributed this
excessive harshness to cognitive deviations from standard rationality. To
cope with the challenges they faced, political forces of diverse persuasions
did not employ the Bayesian rule of information processing and the
conventional calculus of cost–benefit analysis. Instead, they relied on the
substantially different mechanisms that a wealth of psychological experi-
ments and field studies have shown humans to use. Real people diverge
systematically from the ideal-typical abstraction of homo oeconomicus.
These deviations shape both human perceptions and actions. First,
rather than processing information in a thorough and balanced fashion,
people automatically resort to cognitive shortcuts that facilitate making
sense of the world but also risk significant distortions (McDermott 2004:
57–68; for a field study, see Schiemann 2007). These inferential heuristics
use simple expedients, such as a disproportionate focus on particularly
vivid, dramatic events or the overgeneralization of apparent similarities,
to minimize people’s computational burden (Kahneman, Slovic, and
Tversky 1982; Gilovich, Griffin, and Kahneman 2002). Whereas fully
rational assessments would be cumbersome and time-consuming, cogni-
tive shortcuts operate easily and allow people expeditiously to navigate
situations of complexity and uncertainty. But the price is the danger of
mistakes, which results from the neglect of objectively relevant informa-
tion – such as the many events that are important but “normal” and not
attention-grabbing; and the underlying differences that superficial simi-
larities overshadow.
Due to these inferential heuristics, both revolutionaries and counter-
revolutionaries often deviated from the commands of rational prudence
and acted in unthinking, precipitous ways. Carried away by the epic
Russian Revolution, which they misinterpreted as the beginning of the
communist world revolution, radical leftists were overeager in spearhead-
ing violent challenges under conditions that held low prospects of success.
 The Tragedy of the Interwar Years 13

Falling prey to the same misperception of revolution’s imminence, right-

ists overestimated the threat posed by these ill-advised uprisings and
therefore squashed them with excessive force. Unrealistic assessments of
the political opportunity structure, by both the left and the right, thus
inspired the outbursts of violence that tinged the interwar years with “fire
and blood” and turned them into a virtual “civil war” (Traverso 2016).
This explosion of cruelty and the disproportionate victimization of the
left were further fueled by a serious skew that distorts people’s choices –
the second cognitive mechanism highlighted in my bounded rationality
approach. As psychological research demonstrates, people commonly
weight gains much less heavily than losses of objectively equal magnitude:
They attach much more importance to a loss than to an equivalent gain
(Kahneman and Tversky 2000: chaps. 7–11; Kahneman 2011: chaps.
26–28, 31; Zamir 2014). For instance, people are significantly more upset
after losing twenty dollars than they are happy when finding a $20 bill.
This lopsided aversion to losses boosts the number of opponents of
drastic change and reinforces their determination to resist this change
and combat its proponents with full force.
Asymmetrical loss aversion thus created an uphill battle for the revo-
lutionary left while strengthening the hand and clenching the fist of the
counterrevolutionary right. After all, efforts to spread revolutionary
communism promised huge gains but also threatened enormous losses.
As these gains carried much lower psychological weight than the costs,
the advocates of profound transformations remained relatively limited in
number; however, they faced a broad phalanx of opponents, determined
to use all means at their disposal. Combined with the resource advantage
of elites, who as winners from the status quo had special reasons to
anticipate massive losses, this skewed alignment of sociopolitical forces
accounts both for the uniform defeat of the radical left and the excep-
tional violence inflicted on the vanquished. Intense fear of loss drove the
reactionary right to perpetrate unspeakable atrocities.
In sum, cognitive-psychological mechanisms are decisive for explaining
the extraordinary trouble and turmoil of the 1920s and 1930s, especially
the shocking descent into inhumanity. My bounded rationality approach
is crucial for capturing the tragedy of an era when Europe went “to hell”
(Kershaw 2015). This line of argument helps account for the frequent
eruption of ill-considered revolutionary challenges, the exceptional harsh-
ness of the counterrevolutionary reaction, the rise of ultraviolent fascism,
and its coercive suppression in most cases – phenomena that conventional
rationalism cannot fully explain. After all, these twists and turns of
14 Introduction

interwar regime developments were shaped by excessive hopes and fears,

while careful assessments and prudent choices were conspicuous by their
absence. It was this triumph of unreason that caused the surplus of
bloodshed and heartbreak.

    

By relying on a bounded rationality approach, this book diverges from
major extant theories. Obviously, it disagrees most directly with conven-
tional rational choice, whose ideal-typical postulates about human infor-
mation processing and decision-making have been thoroughly and
systematically falsified by cognitive psychology (Kahneman, Slovic, and
Tversky 1982; Thaler 1992; Kahneman and Tversky 2000; Gilovich,
Griffin, and Kahneman 2002; Zamir 2014). Of course, outside the
laboratory, in the real world of politics, people’s systematic deviations
from standard rationality are hard to assess and impossible to prove. The
fundamental difficulty of ascertaining self-interests (e.g., short-term or
long-term?) and rational choice’s ability to retro-infer actor interests from
their action, which can make a wide range of behavior look rational,
exacerbate this problem.
To provide evidence for my bounded rationality approach despite this
interpretive flexibility, I invoke neutral third parties, namely the historians
researching interwar politics, in the many case studies in this volume.
These experts commonly highlight actors’ misperceptions, such as stark
overestimations of the communist threat, and the corresponding excessive
responses, especially the atrocity of anti-communist repression; specialists
similarly stress overestimations of the fascist threat in several countries
and the striking cruelty of governmental counter-terror. Because these
experts are uninvolved in Political Science’s debate over rationality, they
can count as objective witnesses. As the following chapters amply show,
their judgments provide overwhelming evidence for my theoretical
approach by emphasizing how much crucial actors in their perceptions
and actions diverged from thorough, balanced information processing
and reasoned, proportionate action.
Despite their disagreements on how rationally people behave, both
rational choice and bounded rationality share the assumption that polit-
ical actors primarily pursue self-regarding interests. Constructivism, by
contrast, diverges from both these frameworks by highlighting the role of
norms and values as more fundamental motivations than interests (Meyer
and Rowan 1977; DiMaggio and Powell 1983; Beckert 2010: 155–59).
 The Limitations of Alternative Approaches 15

Accordingly, constructivism suggests that waves of regime change arise

from “norms cascades” (Finnemore and Sikkink 2001; Sikkink 2011),
which are driven by progress in moral principles. As liberal maxims
spread across the world, guarantees for human rights and democratic
regime forms will sooner or later spread as well.
But these conventional versions of constructivism with their probabil-
istic expectations of ideational advance and normative improvement have
obvious difficulties explaining the massive autocratic wave of the interwar
years with its appalling political setbacks and human tragedies. History
did certainly not move forward, but backward, and violently so. Whereas
constructivism foresees an ongoing tendency toward progress, the 1920s
and 1930s saw many striking reversals, culminating in the catastrophe of
WWII and the holocaust. The historical trend drastically turned around,
away from the nineteenth century’s gradual advancements.
Even historicist versions of constructivism, which abandon expect-
ations of uniform, linear progress and acknowledge fundamental changes
in the Zeitgeist, are not fully persuasive. These arguments relativize the
notion of progress: It depends on the norms and values prevailing in each
specific era. From the late nineteenth century onward, liberal optimism
ceded before a groundswell of cultural pessimism, which rested on the
questioning of reason and brought the growing celebration of darker,
fiercer forces (Bracher 1982: part I; Burrow 2000; Buruma and Margalit
2004). Accordingly, an intellectual climate spread in the early twentieth
century that extolled traditional “life” rather than efficient, calculating
modernity; that valued emotion, myth, and sheer willpower over reason;
and that depicted the world as ruled by conflict and struggle, rather than
deliberation, negotiation, and compromise (e.g., Sorel [1908] 1999; see
Sternhell 1994: chap. 1). The strong would carry the day!
In line with this reversal in predominant ideas, many people during the
interwar years found right-wing regimes attractive, and this allure facili-
tated their spread (e.g., Sontheimer 1978; Herf 1984). Fascism and
authoritarianism, which revolved around forceful, dynamic, and uncon-
strained leadership, elicited fascination and support. As liberal democracy
looked feckless, decadent, and doomed, new forms of reactionary rule
based on the demagogic mobilization of the popular masses seemed
necessary for fortifying the body politic, protecting national survival,
and guaranteeing a promising future. Charismatic leaders would turn
the people into a vibrant organic community and conquer a powerful
place on the international scene. Through this determined harnessing of
popular energies, the nation would gain the strength to defend itself
16 Introduction

against any danger, especially left-wing revolution. These reactionary

ideas gave right-wing regimes their own, genuine appeal. During the
1920s and 1930s, autocrats proudly called themselves dictators (e.g.,
Primo de Rivera [1930] 2018; Ferro 1939) and intellectuals explicitly
advocated dictatorship (e.g., Cioran [1931–37] 2011: 179–95). This
undemocratic climate helped inspire the reactionary riptide.
But this illiberal Zeitgeist constituted a broad stream of heterogeneous
currents, rather than a clear blueprint for regime change (Sontheimer
1978). Consequently, this normative atmosphere had only limited causal
force and cannot explain specific political actions; actors retained consid-
erable room for maneuver in pursuing their interests. Indeed, despite
decades of deepening cultural pessimism, the Western democracies’ vic-
tory in WWI helped to propel an initial wave of democratization, which
induced the new countries in Central and Eastern Europe to adopt liberal,
anti-authoritarian constitutions!
Democracies’ subsequent overthrow did not directly emanate from the
Zeitgeist either. After all, the autocratic model with the greatest normative
attraction during the 1920s and 1930s was fascism (Hamilton 1971); but
only one country, Germany, followed Italy’s precedent and adopted full-
scale fascism. Many other leaders, even Mussolini admirers, prioritized
their self-interests, imposed conservative authoritarianism, and sup-
pressed fascist movements. These elites sought to cement their own dom-
ination rather than ceding to fascism’s charismatic leaders. Thus, political
interests, not normative appeal, carried the day. Fascism with its dynamic
energy and mobilizational drive looked attractive – but also uncontrol-
lable and risky. Consequently, fascism exerted its own deterrent effects.
To preserve their political clout, establishment sectors preferred stodgy
but safe authoritarianism. Despite fascism’s enormous appeal, the auto-
cratic wave of the interwar years therefore saw a proliferation of elitist,
exclusionary authoritarianism, rather than exciting, transformational
fascism.
Thus, the ideational and normative appeal of fascism often backfired.
Where this attraction gave rise to strong fascist mass movements, estab-
lished elites perceived threats to their own preeminence and therefore
turned against the violent hordes and their charismatic leaders. Indeed,
in several countries conservative sectors spearheaded preemptive coups
designed to keep fascist groupings out of power, as Chapter 8 shows.
Thus, with all the enthusiasm that it elicited and with the demonstration
effects it triggered, fascism exerted its own deterrent effects, which proved
more influential in actual politics. Out of a paradoxical but compelling
 The Limitations of Alternative Approaches 17

logic, a number of Mussolini admirers instituted authoritarian dictator-

ships that suppressed Mussolini’s disciples inside their own countries.
In sum, constructivism cannot easily account for the riptide of demo-
cratic breakdown. Its conventional expectations of normative progress
are challenged by this dramatic regression. Even historicist variants that
invoke the changing Zeitgeist cannot explain it very well as the infre-
quency of fascism’s spread shows. Ideational developments help set the
stage for political regime cascades, but constitute an atmospheric back-
ground rather than directly shaping regime outcomes.
Whereas constructivism highlights soft external influences arising from
normative diffusion, other theorists argue that hard power drives waves
of political change; after all, powerful countries often push their own
regime type on other nations (Owen 2010; Boix 2011; Gunitsky 2014,
2017). But these arguments cannot account for the interwar reverse wave
either, when no country commanded hegemony in Europe. The most
distinctive mechanism highlighted by these theories,3 coercive pressure,
was mostly inoperative (Møller, Skaaning, and Tolstrup 2017: 564,
582–83). Italy was too weak to impose fascism on other countries, even
on tiny neighbor Austria, which skillfully resisted Mussolini’s pressure
(Maderthaner and Maier 2004; Pasteur 2007: 157–62). And Germany
regained overwhelming strength only in the late 1930s. But by then, the
reverse wave had already unfolded for two decades! Therefore, most
autocratic regimes did not result from great power pressure; foreign
involvement was rare, and coercion even more so.
Moreover, when Hitler, from 1938 onward, did use military might to
destroy democracy, he mostly refrained from installing fascist regimes in
conquered territories. To promote Germany’s strategic interests in WWII,
he preferred cooperation with established elites and their authoritarian
regimes, rather than with fascism’s arbitrary leaders and their uncontrol-
lable mass base. Thus, contrary to the great-power literature, the world
leader of fascism did not impose fascism on the world. In conclusion,
foreign interference, especially coercive force, had little impact on the
reverse wave. Although violence was rife during the interwar years, great
power influence, especially imposition, did not propel the autocratic
riptide.
In sum, neither ideas and values nor great power pressures convin-
cingly explain the massive spread of authoritarianism and fascism during

3
Gunitsky (2017) also considers the economic incentives provided by great powers and
their regime model’s normative appeal.
18 Introduction

the 1920s and 1930s. Instead, political interests were crucial. Yet as the
preceding section clarified, actors did not pursue these interests in con-
ventionally rational ways, but employed cognitive-psychological mechan-
isms and therefore acted haphazardly and precipitously. Consequently,
my bounded rationality approach offers the best account of the largescale
destruction of democracy.



Enriching Studies of Diffusion: The Importance of Deterrent Effects

By documenting the importance of the double deterrent effect – the
backlash against communism as well as fascism – this book contributes
to the study of political and institutional diffusion. The burgeoning litera-
ture on this topic has focused primarily on forces of attraction that make
an innovation’s spread more likely. Authors highlight various engines of
propulsion, which range from demonstration effects and learning to
normative or symbolic appeal and competitive imitation (e.g., DiMaggio
and Powell 1983; Dobbin, Garrett, and Simmons 2006).
Not everybody, however, sees an innovation as beneficial. At the same
time as promising gains for some, a change can also threaten losses for
others. Given the diversity of interests in complex societies, many depart-
ures from the status quo are not Pareto-optimal. Losses loom especially
when change is profound, as in the redistribution of wealth or power.
Obviously, a communist revolution ranks extremely high on this scale.
The installation of fascism, which empowers an uncontrollable, violence-
prone leader, holds serious risks as well. While these dramatic transform-
ations promise (!) substantial improvements for the broad population,
many groupings, even supposed beneficiaries, in fact anticipate losses.
Many workers, for instance, whom communist redistribution claimed to
favor, rejected the attacks on religion or patriotism that Lenin’s disciples
also advocated. Most importantly, elites have reason for fear, seeing their
power and privileges under assault, which they can defend with their
ample resources and political influence.
Asymmetrical loss aversion further skews the line-up of contending
forces in these redistributive battles. The unequal valuation of gains and
losses helps explain why the precedents of radical transformation that
shook up politics during the interwar years, namely the Russian
Revolution and the extreme reaction of fascism, most often found fewer
and less powerful advocates and imitators than firm adversaries and fierce
 Contributions 19

enemies. No wonder that the attempts to emulate Lenin’s success univer-

sally failed, suppressed by harsh reactionary violence. Similarly, the
efforts to follow in Mussolini’s and Hitler’s footsteps achieved little
success, with the sole exception of Hitler’s takeover in Germany. In most
cases, status-quo defenders, dead-set on forestalling radical left- or right-
wing change by imposing conservative authoritarianism, won out. The
preponderance of deterrent effects, fueled by asymmetrical loss aversion,
thus drove the reverse wave. The prevalence of repulsion is crucial for
explaining both the victory of counterrevolution over revolution and the
subsequent victory of elitist authoritarianism over totalitarian fascism.
My findings suggest that the diffusion literature needs to go beyond its
focus on contagion and demonstration effects and systematically consider
deterrent effects as well. As the contagion metaphor implies, this literature
is inspired by medical analogies, which see bodies as passive victims of a
disease vector. But political actors are far from passive; they have con-
scious agency and react to challenges. Therefore, they tend to assess
innovations in light of their interests. Then they respond to changes that
threaten losses, either with defensive measures or by combating the
proponents of harmful transformations. Such counter-attacks do not only
cement the status quo but also make future efforts at promoting drastic
change less likely. With these reactions, conservative sectors move the
polity away from the initial innovation. Due to deterrent effects, a high-
stakes precedent can hurt its advocates’ cause by prompting a determined
backlash and impeding the precedent’s further replication. A revolution,
for instance, tends to provoke the proliferation of counterrevolution, as
Chapter 4 documents. By documenting these deterrent effects and
uncovering their roots in asymmetrical loss aversion, this book helps fill
a gap in diffusion studies.

Enriching Studies of Diffusion: Complex Processes, Divergent Outcomes

By mapping and explaining the complex intersection of various demon-
stration and deterrent effects, this book makes another contribution to
diffusion studies, which mainly focus on direct impulses that unleash
clear-cut waves. Yet this literature has difficulty uncovering the under-
tows and crosscurrents that often affect innovations’ spread. In particular,
the frequently used statistical techniques inevitably have to rely on sim-
plifying assumptions and miss important indirect and even “contradict-
ory” influences across cases. As highlighted in the preceding subsection,
drastic changes often have a polarizing impact by inspiring some
20 Introduction

groupings to initiate emulation efforts, while scaring others into fighting

these replication attempts. Where these counteracting effects are fairly
equal in strength, a statistical analysis, focusing on the unchanged out-
come, may well code this case as absence of diffusion; however, it would
overlook the demonstration and deterrent effects that in fact played out.
Moreover, many diffusion processes unfold with irregular time frames
and are therefore hard to detect in statistical investigations, which have to
stipulate uniform lag structures. Several fascist leaders, for instance, tried
to imitate Mussolini’s 1922 “March on Rome” many years later, as
Austria’s Heimwehr did with “an abortive ‘march on Vienna’ in 1931”
(Pauley 1981: 75; Kirk 2003: 19), and Belgium’s Léon Degrelle with a
“March on Brussels” in late 1936 (De Wever 2009: 477). Moreover,
Hitler, who had spearheaded his “March on the Feldherrnhalle” in
1923 already, kept learning from Mussolini’s takeover even after this
emulation effort failed; once he realized that the Italian dictator’s success
had depended on elite support, the Nazi leader plotted his own path to
power accordingly. Statistical studies would have difficulty capturing the
isomorphic imitation attempts that erupted at such varied times, not to
speak of the delayed, complex impact of the Italian precedent on Hitler’s
Machtergreifung (power grab).
To capture the spread of communism, fascism, and authoritarianism
comprehensively, the present book employs qualitative research (like
Weyland 2014, 2019). In particular, it seeks to unravel the complex
intersection of forces of propulsion and repulsion and thus demonstrate
how the double deterrent effect shaped the riptide of autocracy. Only such
an in-depth analysis can elucidate the monumental reverse wave of the
1920s and 1930s.

Enriching Studies of Autocracy: The Rare Success of Fascism

With its attention to deterrent effects, this book also contributes to the
growing literature on autocracy, especially the analysis of fascism and
authoritarianism. Given the world-historical significance and unpreced-
ented destructiveness of Germany’s National Socialism, research on the
interwar years has focused primarily on this totalitarian regime type, its
emergence and repercussions. Gunitsky’s (2017: chap. 4) excellent book,
for instance, analyzes the 1930s as “the fascist wave.” Similarly, Berman’s
(2019: chaps. 11–12) monumental study of European regime develop-
ments pays special attention to the rise of Italian fascism and German
Nazism. What this understandable focus tends to neglect, however, is that
 Contributions 21

fascism’s spread faced tremendous obstacles and fierce resistance.

Therefore, fascist regimes remained exceedingly rare during the 1920s
and 1930s; instead, democracy fell mainly to authoritarian rule (over-
views in Oberländer 2001; Pasteur 2007).
By systematically analyzing the spread of authoritarianism, this study
helps to rectify the imbalance of extant scholarship. Fascism has received
disproportionate attention (Linz 2000: 182–83), whereas the much more
common proliferation of authoritarian rule appears as an afterthought, as
in Luebbert’s (1991: 258–66, 272–77) brief discussion of the “irrele-
vance” of “traditional dictatorship” for Central and Western Europe.
By offering a more encompassing and balanced analysis of the interwar
reverse wave, this book tries to give authoritarianism its due. Rather than
being a rudimentary, deficient version of fascism, this regime type had its
own logic and political significance, as Juan Linz (1964, 2000, 2002)
emphasized over the decades. In fact, because authoritarian leaders out-
maneuvered, controlled, and combated fascism, they forestalled its tri-
umph in numerous countries (Payne 1995: 250, 274–76, 312–16, 324).
Conservative dictators thus limited the destructive repercussions of this
new totalitarian model. For these reasons, Chapters 7 and 8 offer an
extensive analysis of authoritarianism’s spread during the 1920s and
1930s.

Enriching Studies of Fascism: Transnational Connections among

Distinct Regimes
My investigation of the demonstration and deterrent effects that drove the
autocratic wave also contributes to the analysis of fascism by extending
and deepening the scholarly understanding of this regime type’s trans-
national dimensions. Most extant studies of fascism’s rise focus primarily
on domestic structures and developments, which of course were crucially
important (e.g., Luebbert 1991; Mann 2004). But the wave-like nature of
anti-democratic reversals suggests that external factors mattered as well.
When international causes are considered, attention centers on common
shocks such as the Great Depression or global power transitions
(Gunitsky 2017: chap. 4). Such specific impulses cannot have been
decisive for autocracy’s proliferation, however, which unfolded slowly
over two decades, both before and after 1929, for instance.
This book therefore joins recent studies by highlighting processes of
political learning and the inspiration provided by the new model of
fascism (e.g., Bauerkämper 2006; Pinto 2014). Fascist movements,
22 Introduction

of course, were heavily influenced by Mussolini’s and Hitler’s precedents.

Moreover, authoritarian rulers often imported some fascist innovations,
such as paramilitary youth movements, single parties, and propaganda
agencies (Kallis 2016; Pinto 2017). In this way, elitist conservatives
sought to borrow ideological fervor and mobilizational dynamism
from fascism and create bottom-up support for their top-down domin-
ation. Highlighting these amalgamation efforts, several scholars have
postulated the emergence of hybrid regimes that fused authoritarianism
and fascism (Dobry 2011; Pinto and Kallis 2014; Kallis 2016; Roberts
2016; Pinto 2017).
My book joins these authors by analyzing transnational influences on
autocratic regime developments. However, I examine not only fascism’s
demonstration effects but also its deterrent effects, as explained in a prior
subsection. Moreover, I question the hybridization claims. After all,
authoritarian rulers imported fascist elements primarily for instrumental,
opportunistic reasons and for conjunctural, temporary purposes, espe-
cially when facing extremist challenges. As soon as the danger passed,
these dictators neglected, squeezed, and eventually suffocated the fascist
imports, which they had always watched uneasily and controlled jeal-
ously. Consequently, the foreign shoots transplanted from mobilizational
regimes did not flourish when grafted onto the tough roots of exclusion-
ary, elitist authoritarianism. Rather than blossoming into genuine
hybrids, these alien innovations quickly shriveled up in this arid atmos-
phere (Linz 1976: 9; Pasteur 2007: 81–86; Tálos 2013: 147, 450,
467–70).
The finding that authoritarianism and fascism never really mixed has
broader relevance for studies of fascism. There was a substantial gulf
between this novel regime type, which was so distinctive of the interwar
years, and authoritarian rule, which had long preceded fascism’s rise and
has far outlived its global downfall in 1945. These two species of autoc-
racy differ greatly. Although conservative authoritarians and fascist
totalitarians shared ideological orientations such as anti-communism,
anti-liberalism, and intense nationalism, and although they often sought
to form tactical alliances, they never fused into organic joint movements,
but always maintained their identities, interests, goals, and strategies.
Each side tried to use the other for its own purposes, especially to grab
power – and then to subjugate or suppress its former ally.
Consequently, a balanced integration between these two different types
of autocracy proved unviable. This unbridgeable divergence was con-
firmed by the sad fate of the only real effort at authoritarian–fascist
 Contributions 23

fusion, namely Romania’s National Legionary State of 1940 (Iordachi

2014). From the beginning, this unique amalgamation experiment
suffered from unsustainable tensions, and it quickly exploded into all-
out civil war, as Chapter 8 discusses. As the infertility of mules proves that
donkeys and horses belong to different species, so the incompatibility of
fascism and authoritarianism, as shown by the sterility of fascist imports
in authoritarian dictatorships and by the immediate self-destruction of the
one attempt at fusion, suggests that these two forms of reactionary rule
are clearly different regime types.
The reason for this incompatibility was that fascism pushed hard for a
thorough transformation guided by an ambitious ideological vision,4
whereas authoritarianism embodied the conservative effort to guarantee
stability and order. Accordingly, fascism sought to concentrate and
expand power absolutely, whereas authoritarianism maintained limited
pluralism. Fascism accepted no restraints on the leader’s despotism, while
authoritarianism restrained its use of coercion. After all, fascism assidu-
ously pursued a millenarian ideological vision, whereas authoritarianism
was vague in its guiding ideas and flexible in its goals. In its chiliastic
drive, fascism forcefully mobilized the citizenry and developed a violent
dynamism. By contrast, authoritarian rulers sought to de-politicize the
population, exclude citizens from politics, and monopolize governance
among the small ruling elite (Mosse 1966: 22). This exclusionary, anti-
political tendency accounts for the lack of lifeblood that fascist imports
found inside authoritarian dictatorships, a crucial obstacle to the forma-
tion of hybrid regimes.
With these important differences to authoritarianism, fascism falls
under Juan Linz’s (1964, 2000, 2002) seminal concept of totalitarianism,
which came in left-wing, communist versions (Leninism, Stalinism,
Maoism) and in right-wing, fascist versions (Italy’s Fascism and
Germany’s National Socialism). As the basic types of autocracy, authori-
tarianism and totalitarianism diverge substantially in structure, dynamics,
and societal base (Bracher 1982: 122–29, 253–59). Authoritarianism is
hierarchical, exclusionary, and non-participatory and therefore finds sus-
tenance among elite sectors and establishment forces, which anchor its
support base (Linz 2000: 159–69). By contrast, totalitarianism arises
from the power grab of personalistic leaders – often outsiders – with
monopolistic claims to rule, who draw support from energetic, activist

4
For renewed emphasis on the ideology of fascism, see Eley (2013: 24–27, 59–83, 140–49).
24 Introduction

mass movements (for Italy, see Gentile 2005: 181–90, 196–201, 245–48).
Accordingly, authoritarianism seeks to preserve the established order,
whereas totalitarianism pushes to forge a new society and polity and even
transform human nature. To pursue its ambitious ideological goals,
totalitarianism suppresses all independent agency and imposes much
tighter, more comprehensive and thoroughgoing control than authoritar-
ianism (Linz 2000: 67–70; Linz 2002: 29, 43, 52, 64–69).
By documenting these crucial distinctions between authoritarianism
and totalitarianism, including fascism (similar Berg-Schlosser and
Mitchell 2000: 35–37), my study diverges from the recent hybridization
claims. This finding has broader conceptual implications because it chal-
lenges the questioning of qualitative differences that pervades the new
literature on autocratic rule (see, e.g., Levitsky and Way 2010; Schedler
2013).5 Contrary to this embrace of conceptual gradualism, my research
finds a substantial gulf between different species of autocracy. Because
authoritarianism and fascism each formed a coherent system with its own
inner logic, there was a clear difference in kind, not merely some differ-
ences in degree along specific variables, such as power concentration or
the fierceness of repression (cf. Gerschewski and Schmotz 2011). This
finding corroborates classical approaches to conceptualization (Sartori
1970, 1984), which postulated and systematically clarified these qualita-
tive distinctions.

Enriching Studies of Fascism: Explanation without

Apologetic Implications
As this study does by emphasizing the double deterrent effect, innumer-
able scholars from various disciplines have highlighted the crucial import-
ance of communism, especially the Russian Revolution, in helping to
prompt the reactionary backlash driving the interwar reverse wave.6

5
Mann (2004: 43–48), for instance, depicts fascism as the most severe and repressive of
four types of authoritarianism that lie on a continuum (p. 44) – but then admits that
“fascism provided a discontinuity” (p. 47).
6
See, for instance, Carsten (1982: 176, 182–83, 187–88), Griffin (1993: viii), Payne (1995:
76–78), Wirsching (1999: 514–16), Bernecker (2002: 22–23, 103, 150–51, 185–86, 208,
248, 255–56, 266–68, 456, 460–61, 474), Mann (2004: 76–77), Paxton (2005: 19, 44,
60–61, 68, 70, 81, 84, 88–89, 102–5, 110, 116, 195), Pasteur (2007: 12–16, 206),
Markwick (2009: 340–44), Paxton (2009: 550, 554), Peniston-Bird (2009: 436–38),
Pugh (2009: 490, 493), Tumblety (2009: 510–11, 517–18), D’Agostino (2012: 165,
170, 174), Gerwarth and Horne (2012a: 42, 44, 51), Kershaw (2015: 229–30);
 Contributions 25

Finding one of its main planks in anti-Bolshevism and arising out of

violent struggles against left-wingers in Northern Italy, fascism, in par-
ticular, emerged in response to radical socialism (Markwick 2009).7
Whereas authoritarianism had long preceded WWI, fascism formed
immediately after and partly in reaction to Lenin’s revolutionary take-
over. Explanatory efforts must recognize this genealogy; communism
mightily contributed to fascism’s emergence via a reactive dynamic of
challenge and response.
Given the ease with which analyses of fascism provoke strident criti-
cisms and scholarly controversies, this finding of an interactive connec-
tion between left-wing revolution and right-wing counterrevolution
requires a crucial clarification: My study does not blame communism
for fascism, nor does it try to excuse the atrocities of the right by high-
lighting the threat from the left. Moreover, I do not attribute historical
responsibility for the autocratic reverse wave of the 1920s and 1930s in
equal portions to both sides of the ideological divide, thus exculpating the
predominantly right-wing perpetrators of widespread cruelties and mas-
sive crimes. In particular, although I follow Nolte’s ([1963] 1979) seminal
study on fascism by highlighting the important link between revolution-
ary challenges and counterrevolutionary reactions – as many other
authors do,8 most prominently the recent study by Traverso (2016) –
I reject Nolte’s specific, provocative claims of a causal link between
Stalinist and Nazi crimes (Nolte 1987c: 29, 32–33; Nolte 1987b:
45–46). Given the obvious sensitivity of this topic in Germany, Nolte’s
ill-considered discussion points on this topic incited a noisy and rather
nasty “fight among historians” (Historikerstreit) (Piper 1987).9
To avoid any misunderstandings, the amply supported and therefore
undeniable finding of a significant link between revolution and counter-
revolution does not imply that the historical responsibility for reactionary

Gerwarth (2016: 153–67). Partial agreement, partial disagreement in Linz (2000:

15–16, 24).
7
Spanish fascist Ramiro Ledesma Ramos ([1935] 2017: 44) highlighted: “Fascism’s first
incompatibility, of an unresolvable type, manifests itself against the Marxists. So unresolv-
able that only the most relentless violence is a solution.”
8
See Note 6. From a center-left perspective, Traverso (2016: 1, 25–30, 53) highlights “the
European civil war” that Nolte (1987a) studied from a center-right perspective.
9
Retrospective observers such as Geppert (2016) marvel at this ill-tempered brawl among
reputable scholars. In recent years, similarly bitter fights have erupted elsewhere, as in
Portugal (e.g., Meneses 2012) and Spain (e.g., Álvarez Tardío and Rey Reguillo 2012:
especially 4–7; Ealham 2013; and responses by Blaney 2016, Rey Reguillo 2016b, and
Villa García 2016).
26 Introduction

regime changes and their consequences falls on the radical left, which
provoked this backlash with its overeager promotion of drastic change.
After all, as my bounded rationality approach highlights, the right did not
assess the threat of communism in thorough and systematic ways, nor did
it respond with proportionate means to protect its interests. Instead,
cognitive shortcuts produced serious overestimations of the leftist
menace, and asymmetrical loss aversion prompted disproportionate
countermeasures. Therefore, rather than using the amount of force that
was necessary for averting leftist revolution, conservative elites and fascist
movements vastly overreacted and engaged in overkill. As numerous
scholars have emphasized (e.g., Kershaw 2015: 107, 133), their crack-
downs were unnecessarily brutal, causing many more victims than mere
defense against left-wing uprisings required. Moreover, their dictatorial
regimes, whose imposition was prompted by excessive fears, ushered in
orgies of violence, clearly worse than called for by the consolidation of
power. Interwar right-wingers thus diverged from the commands of
instrumental rationality in unleashing exorbitant cruelty.
The present book does not only follow innumerable historical analyses
in emphasizing these excesses but also highlights deviations from conven-
tional rationality to explain them. My emphasis on bounded rationality
leaves no room for exculpatory tendencies or apologetic implications.
Instead, I stress that many of the crucial political events of the interwar
years, including the right-wing suppression of left-wing uprisings and
the installation of many autocracies, resulted from misperceptions and
skewed choices. By documenting how conservative authoritarians
and totalitarian fascists overrated the danger of communism and
employed excessive means to avert this specter, I am far from excusing
their actions.
In sum, by resting on a bounded rationality approach, my backlash
argument does not have apologetic intentions or exculpatory implica-
tions. Through their strong deterrent effects, the Russian Revolution
and the imitation efforts of the radical left undoubtedly helped to prompt
reactionary responses, including the rise of fascism, and to stimulate the
imposition of autocracy in many countries, directly or indirectly. But the
fears driving these responses were clearly excessive due to cognitive
heuristics, and reactionary measures went far overboard due to lopsided
loss aversion. By emphasizing these significant deviations from political
rationality, my explanation does not excuse the crimes of the right with
the provocations of the left.
 Research Design, Sources, and Case Selection 27

 , ,   

A prior subsection has emphasized the complexity of the interwar reverse
wave, which was deeply shaped by a double, nested deterrent effect;
statistical analyses would face difficulties in trying to unravel this multi-
layered web of diffusion processes, pushed and pulled by counteracting
forces of propulsion and repulsion. This study therefore relies on qualita-
tive research and comparative-historical analysis. It draws mainly on the
ample and rich secondary literature, which has produced studies of
monumental significance (Bracher [1955] 1978; Nolte [1963] 1979;
Luebbert 1991; Payne 1995; Kershaw 2000, 2015). While the bulk of
writings focus in a lopsided way on fascism and therefore on Italy and
Germany, there are also numerous investigations of other nations and
their authoritarian regimes and democracies (e.g., Oberländer 2001;
Capoccia 2005; Pasteur 2007; Doumanis 2016; Pinto and Finchelstein
2019). Although coverage is thin for some interesting cases, such as
Estonia in the early 1930s (exception: Kasekamp 2000), the work of
historians provides ample material for most countries.
To examine the perceptions and calculations that informed political
decisions, to unearth evidence of inspiration and learning, and to docu-
ment the operation of cognitive mechanisms, this book also relies on large
numbers of primary sources. Among these texts are major political proc-
lamations (Hitler [1925] 2016; Mussolini [1932] 2018; Liebknecht 1974;
Salazar 1977), speeches (Ebert 1926; Salazar 1948), interviews (Ferro
1939), letters (Maderthaner and Maier 2004), diaries (Carol II 1995;
Vargas 1995; Kessler 1999; Goebbels 2008; Codreanu 2015), and tran-
scribed or summarized conversations (Picker 2009). I also read many
memoirs (e.g., Noske 1920; Müller 1924, 1925, 1926; Mussolini [1928]
1998; Scheidemann 1929; Codreanu 1939; Starhemberg 1942; Horthy
[1953] 2011; Gil Robles 2006). Furthermore, I collected original docu-
ments about Getúlio Vargas’ dictatorship (1930–45) in the Centro de
Pesquisa e Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brasil
(CPDOC) of the Fundação Getúlio Vargas in Rio de Janeiro; and about
the installation and institutionalization of António Salazar’s autocracy
(1932–69) in the Arquivo Nacional da Torre de Tombo in Lisbon.
This book examines many countries in Europe and Latin America,
although the reverse wave of the interwar years had global repercussions
(Larsen 2001) and affected even faraway nations such as Japan
(Hofmann 2015). Besides practical considerations of research
28 Introduction

background and language competence, the methodological concern of

avoiding stark causal heterogeneity motivated this self-limitation.
Because large parts of Africa and Asia were still under colonial rule, these
continents do not offer much opportunity for systematic comparative
analysis that would hold the regional context constant.
Specifically, the analysis concentrates primarily on Europe. After all,
the epicenter of the autocratic earthquake lay in the Old Continent, where
large swaths suffered its repercussions. Most of Southern, Eastern, and
Central Europe installed authoritarian or fascist rule; and West European
nations that managed to maintain democracy saw the rise of extreme-
right or fascist movements, which flourished especially in Belgium and
France (De Wever 2009; Tumblety 2009; overview in Bauerkämper 2006:
90–165). Where similar efforts occurred in Latin America, they were
inspired by Southern European precedents and models (Deutsch 1999;
Larsen 2001; Finchelstein 2010). For these reasons, Europe deserves
special attention.
The study investigates a large number of countries in some depth. This
broad coverage is crucial for capturing the complexity and internal het-
erogeneity of the interwar reverse wave. As explained previously, the
reactionaries of the 1920s and 1930s had two autocratic regime options,
authoritarianism and fascism. Moreover, the tensions and conflicts
between the advocates of these divergent models resulted in diverse paths
toward dictatorship that combined cooptation and repression in varying
ways and sometimes advanced via preemptive coups.
For these reasons, the book features a chapter on Germany, which as
the only country to follow Italy in instituting full-fledged fascism holds
special interest; the world-historical significance of National Socialism
also justifies an in-depth analysis. Moreover, Argentina, Austria, Brazil,
Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Portugal,
Romania, and Spain receive considerable attention. After all, Italy gave
rise to the fascist model. Hungary was the first country to institute
authoritarianism after WWI, in direct response to an attempt at commun-
ist revolution; Budapest then also saw a regime insider’s effort to move
toward fascism in the 1930s. In Brazil, Portugal, and Spain, conservative
authoritarians used fascist movements to install or consolidate exclusion-
ary autocracy; yet these countries experienced very different levels of
leftist threat, which ranged from high in Spain to middling in Brazil and
low in Portugal. In Estonia, Romania, and Austria, by contrast, conserva-
tive authoritarians imposed autocracy on their own to keep surging fascist
movements from seizing power.
 Central Concepts 29

Because the cascade of dictatorship did not take hold everywhere, it is

also crucial to examine contrast cases. Chapter 9 focuses on the main
“challenged survivors” (Capoccia 2005: 7) and “analytically interesting
‘near misses’” (Capoccia and Ziblatt 2010: 943–44), where democracy
escaped from major problems and acute threats. In France, political
liberalism faced several rounds of challenges, especially from the radical
right during the 1930s, but the party system demonstrated resilience and
allowed a somewhat damaged democracy to survive until the German
invasion of 1940. In Finland – interesting due to its underlying similarities
to Estonia – a problem-plagued democracy narrowly escaped from a
strong fascist challenge by eliminating the perceived threat from the
revolutionary left and thus taking the wind out of the far right’s sails.
And in Czechoslovakia, a party coalition kept radical left-wingers and
radical right-wingers at bay and safeguarded democracy throughout the
autocratic wave. Finally, Argentina shows how a belated fascist impulse,
which gathered steam only during fascism’s global defeat in WWII,
softened into populism, yet soon assumed an increasingly authoritarian
character.
These case studies document the intricate unfolding of democratic
breakdown and autocratic installation. The investigation focuses on
major “episodes” (Capoccia and Ziblatt 2010: 940–44) in which regime
change was on the agenda, especially revolutionary challenges, counter-
revolutionary reactions, advances of fascist movements, and conserva-
tives’ imposition or hardening of authoritarian rule. By demonstrating the
crucial importance that the perceived danger of communism or the surge
of fascism had on these episodes, the empirical chapters substantiate the
book’s main argument about the double deterrent effect.

 
To allow for easy dialog with the extant literature, this study tries to
employ standard definitions of major concepts. Accordingly, I conceive of
democracy in mainstream Dahlian terms as equivalent to liberal plural-
ism, and use these terms interchangeably. Moreover, I use the seminal
distinction of authoritarianism and totalitarianism introduced and thor-
oughly explained by Juan Linz (1964, 2000, 2002; see also Bracher 1982:
122–29), which underlies my questioning of recent claims of
authoritarian–fascist hybridization.
Two notions of central importance for this book, however, are not
easy to pin down, namely fascism and reactionary rule. As regards
30 Introduction

fascism, there is an overabundance of conceptualizations, whereas for

political reaction, there is a dearth (Mayer 1971: 35–36; Lilla 2016: ix).

Fascism
“Generic” fascism, as a notion that goes beyond the Italian case, has
proven exceedingly difficult to define (see recently Roberts 2016:
3–17; Griffin 2018: 26–33). Reasons for this problem include the pre-
dominance of charismatic, personalistic leadership, which can give
fascist movements peculiar political and ideological orientations, such as
the divergence between Italian fascism and German National Socialism
on biological racism. Moreover, fascist ideology, designed by political
practitioners – not theorists like Marx – was comparatively vague,
lacked codification, and oddly combined retrograde and modern
elements (see especially Sternhell 1986 and Griffin 2007). Consequently,
it was not very clear what fascism’s vision and end goal really were.10
And with its heterogeneous social composition and catch-all
nature, fascism also lacked a specific class character (see recently Griffin
2018: 18, 28).
Therefore, extant definitions are not fully satisfactory.11 Even the most
ambitious effort, Griffin’s (1993: 26; see 26–50; see also Griffin 2018:
34–46) characterization of fascism as revolving around “a palingenetic
form of populist ultra-nationalism,” has significant problems (criticism in
Eatwell 2001: 27–28; Roberts 2016: 12–13, 35). Its emphasis on nation-
alism as fascism’s genus fails to capture Mussolini’s African colonialism
and especially Hitler’s drive for a vast racial empire in the East (Traverso
2016: 104–5, 124), which went far beyond any nationalism (see, e.g.,
Nolte 1987a: 535–36; Linz 2000: 120; Snyder 2015: 33–37, 241;

10
Mussolini’s ([1932] 2018) “doctrine of fascism” formed only during the gradual regime
installation in the 1920s, as the Duce himself stressed (pp. 12–14), and always remained
vague. And Hitler developed his guiding vision of a Germanic racial empire in the East,
which Snyder (2015) highlights (yet with questionable scholarship: Herf 2017: 230–33),
mainly in his unpublished second book and then in his private “table talks” during WWII
(Nolte 1979: 487–500; Jäckel 1981: 48; see also Schieder 2017: 10). Yet during his long
quest for power before 1933 and during the consolidation of his regime thereafter, Hitler
deliberately disguised these outlandish goals to win and maintain support (Snyder 2015:
36, 43).
11
Linz (1976: 12–15) developed a “multi-dimensional typological definition of fascism,”
but its high complexity does not situate fascism in a broader conceptual field, something
Sartori (1984) recommends.
 Central Concepts 31

Schieder 2017: 37–40). Indeed, the last major handbook of fascism did
not embrace Griffin’s definition, but left the conceptual question open
(Bosworth 2009b: 4–6).
Interestingly, however, despite continuing definitional debates,
scholars largely agree on fascism’s extension, especially the set of fascist
regimes. Most historians (e.g., Payne 1995: 245; Bauerkämper 2006;
Paxton 2009: 548–50, 563–64) and social scientists (e.g., Linz 2000:
23–24, 116–28; Mann 2004; Griffin 2018: 5)12 call only Mussolini’s
and Hitler’s dictatorships fascist.13 These scholars also agree on the main
radical-right movements that count as fascist, namely the Heimwehr and
the local Nazi Party in Austria, Léon Degrelle’s Rexists in Belgium, the
Integralists in Brazil, the Veterans’ Movement in Estonia, the Lapua
Movement in Finland, the Arrow Cross in Hungary, Rolão Preto’s Blue
Shirts in Portugal, the Legion of the Archangel Michael aka Iron Guard in
Romania, and the Falange in Spain.
To subsume this largely consensual list of fascist movements and
regimes under a working definition, the present study starts from the
finding that fascism never really fused with authoritarianism. What pre-
cluded hybridization was the totalitarian impetus of fascism, which
differed fundamentally from the stability orientation of elitist, de-
mobilizational authoritarianism. Given this basic characteristic of fas-
cism, evident in its millenarian vision, inexhaustible dynamism, and quest
for absolute power, it makes sense to conceive of fascism as a type of
totalitarianism. With this move, the study employs the approach to
conceptualization advocated by Giovanni Sartori (1970, 1984), who
thought of concepts as hierarchically ordered along a “ladder of
abstraction.”

12
As a recent exception, Riley (2019) calls Franco’s military regime in Spain and Romania’s
royal dictatorship fascist – but with an idiosyncratic, excessively loose definition of
fascism as “authoritarian democracy” (Riley 2019: xx–xxi, 2–6).
13
The only case that is unclear (e.g., Mann 2004: 208–11) is Austria’s Dollfuß–Schuschnigg
regime (1933–38), which scholars often label as “clerical fascism” (discussion in Pyrah
2007) or simply “Austrofascism” (e.g., Thorpe 2010; Tálos 2013). But regime founder
Engelbert Dollfuß explicitly rejected the fascist label (Dollfuß 1994: 185, 208), and his
successor Kurt Schuschnigg (1937: 291–92) also highlighted the distance of his corporat-
ist authoritarianism from totalitarian fascism. Indeed, on a crucial characteristic of
fascism, namely comprehensive political mobilization, the Austrian autocracy differed
substantially from Mussolini’s Italy and especially Nazi Germany (Pammer 2013:
397–99). Therefore, the Dollfuß–Schuschnigg regime does not qualify as fascism
(Peniston-Bird 2009: 450–51; Reiter-Zatloukal, Rothländer, and Schölnberger 2012:
8–9; Botz 2014: 141; Botz 2017: 165; nuanced assessment in Kirk 2003: 22–26).
32 Introduction

Accordingly, I define fascism per genus et differentiam as the right-

wing variant of totalitarianism. This definition follows Linz’s (2000:
116–28) seminal discussion of totalitarianism, while aligning with the
recent conceptual analysis of Roberts (2016: 274; see also 209–11, 247,
284–85), who “found totalitarianism the most useful differentiating
principle” of fascism, by contrast to authoritarianism. Using Sartori’s
procedure and situating fascism in a taxonomical hierarchy locates this
notion systematically vis-à-vis other regime types, an important advan-
tage for a book on regime change. And by elucidating fascists’ tension-
filled relationship with the advocates of authoritarian rule (see Linz
2002), the classification of fascism as a variant of totalitarianism proves
its conceptual validity and analytical usefulness.14
This notion of fascism covers both Mussolini’s and Hitler’s dictator-
ships,15 which shared a strong mobilizational drive and high power
concentration. Subsumption under a common label, however, does not
deny the two tyrannies’ differences. Whereas Italian fascism sought to
strengthen the state and pursue belated imperialism, National Socialism
constituted a much more ambitious and radical project in its genocidal
racism and its push for a slave system in Eastern Europe (Snyder 2015).
Internally, Germany’s despotism was fiercer, more impositional, and
therefore more totalitarian than Italy’s autocracy, which cooperated with
established power centers such as the king, the military, and the church,
whereas National Socialism subjugated all other actors. But recent studies
show that Mussolini’s regime also had inherent totalitarian tendencies
(Gentile 2005: 173–89, 196–201, 265–69). Despite their significant dif-
ferences, the two cases of fascism, which also coincided in their intense
anti-communism, anti-liberalism, anti-rationalism, and vitalism, thus fit
my definition.
Whereas my definition of fascism as a variant of totalitarianism
emphasizes its institutional differences from authoritarianism, its ideo-
logical characterization of fascism as right-wing, which highlights its
antagonism to communist totalitarianism, stresses underlying similarities
between energetic fascists and conservative authoritarians – the other side
of their tension-filled relationship: As right-wingers, they often made
common front against radical left-wingers.

14
For a very thorough and instructive application of the totalitarianism concept to fascist
movements in France and Germany, see Wirsching (1999).
15
On “Nazism as fascism,” see recently Eley (2013).
 Central Concepts 33

Admittedly, fascism’s lack of a clear ideological doctrine created some

ambiguities on the left–right dimension. In fact, quite a few fascists, most
prominently Mussolini, had emerged from the political left (Sternhell
1994; Berman 2006: chap. 4); and some self-proclaimed fascists, such as
Otto Strasser’s group in Germany, embraced socialism in a nationalist
version, sought to overturn socioeconomic privileges and hierarchies, and
thus had ideological affinities with the left (Nolte 1987a: 158–61;
Mommsen 2016: 398–401, 416–21; for another case, see Ledesma
Ramos [1935] 2017: 36–38, 44, 92, 156, 201). But Sternhell’s (1986)
provocative claim that ideologically, French fascism was “neither right
nor left” is not broadly applicable. Fascism’s vastly predominant currents
clearly gravitated toward the far right and forcefully imposed this orien-
tation on their movements, for instance, by expelling Otto Strasser from
the NSDAP. Therefore, it is conceptually valid to define fascism in ideo-
logical terms as right-wing.
This study conceives of right-wing ideas in conventional terms: They
rest on a pessimistic, Hobbesian anthropology (cf. Mayer 1971: 48, 52),
which highlights constant risks of conflict and struggle. To avert these
threats, right-wingers advocate imposition and coercion to guarantee
stability; see hierarchy, elitism, and discipline as the proper basis of order;
reject egalitarianism; and limit or firmly control bottom-up pressures. The
polity that the right seeks to preserve, restore, or regenerate resembles a
steep pyramid with distinct layers and corresponding differences in attri-
butions, responsibilities, and privileges.
According to this definition, the right ranges between two poles,
namely conservatives and fascists. Confident in the clout of established
elites, conservatives perceive a less intense threat of conflict. Accordingly,
they see existing structures, especially cultural tradition, the family, cli-
entelistic networks, and the professional status ladder, as reliable founda-
tions of order, which needs to be preserved, in times of crises through
fortification via an authoritarian regime. Fascists, by contrast, see danger-
ous enemies lurking everywhere and fear that order is deeply threatened
or has already been shattered.16 Fascists therefore advocate a massive
total onslaught against the evil foes and energetic moves to re-found a
strong, unchallengeable order that places the revered hierarchies of the
(mythical) past (cf. Stanley 2018: chap. 1) on a stronger, modern

16
Nolte (1979: 486, 492, 502, 507) perceptively argues that Hitler’s whole worldview
rested on deep anxiety (Angst).
34 Introduction

foundation. Fascists called for a profound regeneration and total trans-

formation of politics – a totalitarian effort. Thus, they were radical
reactionaries.

Reactionary Rule
This discussion of right-wingers’ quest for bolstering hierarchical order
leads to the concept of political reaction, which is frequently used, but
rarely defined. Interestingly, during the interwar years, reactionary orien-
tations were particularly widespread, affecting large segments of the
political right. The reason was that conservatives faced a fundamental
conundrum after the catastrophe of WWI, the Bolshevist revolution and
its revolutionary repercussions elsewhere, and democracy’s spread to
most of Central and Eastern Europe: The elitist, hierarchical order that
they wanted to maintain had crumbled or collapsed. Their definitional
goal, namely to conserve the existing system, no longer aligned with their
substantive preferences. Because conservatives embrace only gradual,
organic, evolutionary change, they refused to acquiesce to the drastic
transformations of the late 1910s and early 1920s. Therefore, they sought
to recuperate the status quo ante, rather than defending the current status
quo. They rejected the new (dis-)order and wanted to restore the old one.
Thus, the world-historical breakpoints that ushered in Hobsbawm’s
(1996) age of extremes left conservatives in an “impossible” situation.
Even those who for pragmatic reasons sought to accept the change of
parameters, such as Weimar Germany’s Vernunftrepublikaner,17 still
looked backward with nostalgia and were prepared, even eager, to
take advantage of opportunities to resurrect the prewar system. Because
their ideas and values were anchored in the recent past, many conserva-
tives tried hard go beyond pure conservation, turn the clock back,
and promote a restoration of the old order. Thus, they adopted a reac-
tionary posture.
Defined here in literal – not polemical – terms (Mayer 1971: 48–49;
Hirschman 1991: 8–10; Lilla 2016: xxii–xxiii; Robin 2018), political
reaction denotes the determination to undo significant political change,
especially discontinuous breakdowns, and to recover or recreate the prior
system. The reference point and goal for these regressive efforts gives rise
to the distinction between moderate reaction, which is palatable to

17
These were monarchists who “reasonably” resigned themselves to the new republic.
 Central Concepts 35

conservatives, and radical reaction, the fascist project.18 Moderate reac-

tionaries are those who, after a recent transformation, regard a return to
the immediately preceding order as viable and promising and therefore
promote its simple restoration (E. Weber 1976: 441; Kann 1978: 300–1).
A prominent example were the French legitimists who simply re-
enthroned the Bourbon dynasty in 1814, after the 1789 revolution and
Napoleon’s defeat (see Kissinger [1957] 2013).
By contrast, radical, profound reactionaries highlight the inherent
vulnerability of the old order, as proven by its very downfall, and seek a
much stronger, more resilient system. For this purpose, they resort to
earlier, older political models but they also try to fortify those revived
structures with new elements and modern instruments (cf. E. Weber 1976:
451–54). Thus, the more doubts that reactionary sectors have in the
solidity of the collapsed system, the more they move – following a
paradoxical logic – in opposite directions, namely both far back into
(mythical) history and far ahead to cutting-edge modernity. In this con-
tradictory vein, Hitler sought to (re-)create the Germanic farmer and
warrior state of the Middle Ages, while marshaling advanced modern
science, such as industrial extermination technology and innovative jet
planes to pursue this atavistic goal (see Lilla 2016: 139; Robin 2018: 40,
51–52; Traverso 2019: 98–105).19
In regime terms, moderate reactionaries believed that traditional elite
rule remained politically viable and therefore advocated excluding the
masses from meaningful participation by imposing hierarchical, non-
mobilizational authoritarianism. By contrast, radical reactionaries were
convinced of the sociopolitical weakness of traditional elites and saw the
need for re-founding the political order on the basis of mass participation.
But as radical right-wingers committed to inequality and hierarchy, they
enlisted charismatic leaders to control and subjugate the masses, use
plebiscitarian acclamation and induced mobilization to sustain totalitar-
ian rule, and turn their most fervent followers into shock troops that
should exterminate their enemies and intimidate the old elites. In some
sense, they promoted a revolutionary form of counterrevolution
(Traverso 2016: 233–36).

18
MacKay and LaRouche (2018) draw a similar distinction for international relations and
exemplify it similarly with post-Napoleonic restoration via the Concert of Europe and
Hitler’s aggressive revisionism of the Versailles treaty.
19
The Islamist caliphate ISIS displayed the same “contradictory” tendencies by employing
modern social media for its retrograde goals (Shane and Hubbard 2014).
36 Introduction

While embracing these different strategies, the right-wing movements

that proliferated during the interwar years in response to the specter of
communism shared a firm set of reactionary orientations. These right-
wing ideas and the goal of turning the political clock back inspired and
shaped the authoritarian and totalitarian dictatorships that sought to
avert the world-revolutionary threat with full force. The 1920s and
1930s saw the biggest wave of such reactionary regimes that the world
has ever witnessed.

   

Chapter 2 systematically presents the book’s theoretical approach. After
acknowledging the contribution of various causal factors to democratic
breakdown during the interwar years, it highlights the fundamental role
of the double deterrent effect. Because established elites saw both revolu-
tionary communism and its most potent antidote, counterrevolutionary
fascism, as serious dangers, they used their preponderant power capabil-
ities to impose conservative authoritarianism as a safeguard in many
countries. These threat perceptions and dictatorial reactions were driven
by basic mechanisms of cognitive psychology. With their deviation from
standard rationality, heuristic shortcuts and asymmetrical loss aversion
gave rise to striking misperceptions and overreactions, which help
account for the proliferation of autocracy and the horrendous “unneces-
sary” bloodletting of the 1920s and 1930s.
The book’s empirical core consists of two parts, which examine the
immediate impact of the Russian Revolution in Chapters 3 and 4 and then
analyze its indirect repercussions, including the role of fascism, in
Chapters 5 through 9. Chapter 3 documents how Lenin’s success quickly
stimulated a wave of radical-left emulation efforts, especially in Central
and Eastern Europe. But as Chapter 4 shows, status-quo defenders every-
where squashed these precipitous uprisings. The reaction to this early
riptide included the emergence of fascism in Italy, which arose in direct
struggle against leftist contention.
The quick and decisive defeat of communists’ early replication efforts
did not reliably guarantee sociopolitical stability, however. Instead, as
Chapter 5 discusses, communism survived in Russia, and Lenin’s disciples
eagerly proselytized, organized, and agitated across the globe. As the
world-revolutionary threat kept looming, mainstream sectors remained
fearful and searched for stronger protection than liberal democracy
 Organization of the Study 37

seemed to guarantee. In this setting, fascism emerged as an attractive

regime model that could reliably protect against communism.
Chapter 6 explains how fascism – exceptionally – managed to seize
power in crisis-ridden Germany. In this fairly modern society, conserva-
tive elites had sufficient clout to undermine liberal democracy, but not
enough control to impose authoritarianism and block a fascist upsurge.
For apparent lack of alternatives, the NSDAP (National-Sozialistische
Deutsche Arbeiterpartei – National-Socialist German Workers’ Party)
eventually gained power, which Hitler immediately used to push
toward totalitarianism.
Chapters 7 and 8 then analyze the much more common imposition of
conservative authoritarianism in less developed countries, where estab-
lishment sectors kept fascist movements under control. Chapter 7 dis-
cusses the complex and tension-filled relations of these right-wing
groupings. It explains how fascist movements emerged in many countries,
but how establishment sectors subdued them to hierarchical, exclusionary
forms of autocracy. Interestingly, however, these authoritarian regimes
often imported elements of fascism, though only as instruments for their
own top-down rule, and even as weapons against domestic fascists.
The long Chapter 8 examines the main pathways toward autocratic
imposition through a series of country cases. In Spain, Brazil, and
Portugal, conservative elites commanded clear predominance and used
fascist movements as mere auxiliaries for installing elitist authoritarian-
ism. In Austria, Estonia, and Romania, by contrast, fascist movements
achieved a striking upsurge. Deeply scared, conservative establishment
sectors prevented fascist power seizures through authoritarian self-coups.
Similarly, authoritarian stalwarts in Hungary obstructed a regime
insider’s efforts to push toward full-scale fascism.
To complete the analysis of regime developments during the 1920s and
1930s, Chapter 9 investigates the edges of the autocratic wave. The
analysis focuses on Finland, France, and Czechoslovakia, which faced
important attacks from the fascist right, yet succeeded in maintaining
liberal democracy. Then I explore the unusual case of Argentina, where
a fascist project emerged in the mid-1940s, yet the global de-legitimation
of fascism in 1945 prompted its transformation into authoritarian popu-
lism, which subsequently turned into a model in Latin America.
The concluding Chapter 10 summarizes the book’s central findings
about the repercussions of the double deterrent effect. Then it emphasizes
that cognitive-psychological insights are crucial for understanding the
tremendous turmoil and terrible death toll of the interwar years. The
38 Introduction

subsequent section stresses that the horrors culminating in the 1940s

exerted their own deterrent effects, which fostered the revival of political
liberty and democratic consolidation in Western Europe. Because democ-
racy has in recent years faced a right-wing populist challenge, the last
section highlights how this threat differs from fascism. This study of the
past thus helps to calm present fears.
 2

Theory: The Double Deterrent Effect and the Bounds

of Rationality

This book argues and documents with a wealth of historical evidence that
the monumental reverse wave of the interwar years was profoundly
shaped by intense fears of communism as well as the determined rejection
of fascism, especially by powerful conservative elites. This double deter-
rent effect was provoked by the demonstration effects that the novel
regime models of Soviet-style communism and of Italian and later
German fascism inspired. In fact, these counteracting diffusion
dynamics of communism and fascism were intimately connected and
reinforced “the symbiotic relationship between revolution and counter-
revolution” (Traverso 2016: 48; see also 225–26). Because radical
left-wingers eagerly tried to emulate the Russian Revolution, status-
quo defenders perceived a dangerous threat from Bolshevism and
therefore defended their interests and values with all means. This counter-
revolutionary impulse played a primary role in the rise of fascism in Italy,
and it gave this new political model enormous appeal among right-
wingers.
Yet as fascist movements mobilized and gained strength in many
countries, establishment sectors came to see these radical, violence-prone
upstarts also as a threat. While these conservative elites liked to employ
extreme-right paramilitaries as shock troops against the left, they were
wary of their uncontrollable dynamism and their charismatic leaders’
push for totalitarian domination. Powerful establishment forces were
therefore driven by a second deterrent effect to keep the fervent fascist
hordes at bay and subjugate them to their own control through the
imposition of non-mobilizational authoritarianism. The resulting conflicts
among the reactionary right gave the massive backlash against the

39
40 Theory: The Double Deterrent Effect

perceived threat of communism particular complexity. Consequently,

democracy’s downfall advanced along different paths: Fascist mass move-
ments seized power in Italy and Germany, whereas conservative elites
installed authoritarianism in many other countries, though in two distinct
ways. In Austria, Estonia, and Romania, establishment forces spear-
headed authoritarian coups to prevent rising fascists from taking power,
whereas in countries such as Brazil, Portugal, and Spain, conservative
sectors used weaker fascist movements as auxiliaries for their own seizure
or consolidation of autocratic power.
Before I disentangle these intersecting demonstration and deterrent
effects, the first subsection highlights the unique complexity of the inter-
war riptide through a comparison with other reverse waves. Whereas
these instances of autocratic imposition or hardening emerged from a
simple, straightforward backlash against revolutionary challenges,
such as the French Revolution of 1789 or the Cuban Revolution of
1959 (Weyland 2019: chaps. 5–8), the 1920s and 1930s saw more
diverse regime developments. There was a double deterrent effect;
moreover, various other problems and crises, such as legacies of war,
persistent ethnic conflicts, and the Great Depression, played crucial
roles as well. But although this unusual problem load weakened democ-
racies here and there, it cannot account for the breadth of autocracy’s
sweep, which resulted from the rejection of communism as well
as fascism.
The second subsection examines this double deterrent effect in system-
atic depth. Finally, the third subsection explains the micro-foundations of
my argument, which are drawn from cognitive psychology. Political
forces across the ideological spectrum clearly deviated from conventional
rationality and acted in misguided, imprudent ways. Fired up by the
Soviet precedent, the radical left spearheaded precipitous, ill-considered
challenges, while the right and center reflexively overrated the danger
of revolutionary communism. This excessive fear induced status-quo
defenders to combat left-wing subversion with unnecessary violence,
and it contributed to the later imposition of autocratic rule as a
protective shield. Moreover, especially after Hitler’s totalitarian
Machtergreifung in Germany, conservative elites in other countries also
overestimated the menace of fascist movements and rashly abolished
political liberty, most strikingly through preemptive self-coups in
several countries. By fomenting these unreasonable actions and
reactions, bounded rationality aggravated the political tragedy of the
interwar years.
 The Exceptional Complexity of the Interwar Reverse Wave 41

     

 

An Unusual Multitude of Problems

Among anti-democratic regime cascades, authoritarianism and fascism’s
spread during the 1920s and 1930s was the most complex by far.
Unusually, a double deterrent effect played a crucial role, as
explained in the next subsection. Several other factors also contributed
to the frequent destruction of democracy. The painful legacies of
WWI, economic shocks such as hyperinflation and the Great
Depression, ethnic tensions and nationalist resentments, and the
political-institutional dysfunctionalities of inexperienced democracies
put severe strain on liberal regimes. There was a unique accumulation
of risk factors and crises (Hobsbawm 1996; Mazower 2000; Kershaw
2015). Considering this unprecedented coincidence of problems, it is
less surprising that many democracies fell, than that quite a few
survived (Cornell, Møller, and Skaaning 2017), if sometimes narrowly
(Capoccia 2005).
By contrast to the complex advance of fascism and authoritarianism in
the post–WWI era, other reverse waves resulted primarily from a direct
backlash against a revolutionary challenge. As my last book demon-
strated, institutionalized military rule in Latin America during the 1960s
and 1970s was provoked by the Cuban Revolution (Weyland 2019:
chaps. 5–6). The regressive involution of England’s liberal regime and
the hardening of European monarchies from the 1790s to the 1820s was a
response to the French Revolution. Similarly, the Iranian Revolution of
1978/79 triggered autocratic deepening throughout the Middle East and
contributed to Turkey’s military coup in 1980. And the “color revolu-
tions” in the post-communist world induced Vladimir Putin and other
post-Soviet autocrats to tighten their reign and squeeze the political
opposition and civil society (Weyland 2019: chap. 8).
Compared to all these reverse waves, the interwar cascade arose from
the complex intersection of various important factors. Problems that had
little impact on other reactionary backlashes played a substantial role
during the 1920s and 1930s. Any account therefore needs to consider this
multi-causality.
First of all, WWI had severely strained societies and caused several
deleterious repercussions. Paradoxically, although this armed cataclysm
felled all combatant autocracies and ended with the victory of Western
42 Theory: The Double Deterrent Effect

democracies, it also undermined the liberal faith in progress and reason

that the preceding century with its socioeconomic and political advances
had nurtured (Kramer 2009). Moreover, the new democracies that
emerged from the ashes started with a heavy burden. Four years of mass
slaughter had brutalized millions of men (Mosse 1999: 15–17; Gerwarth
2016; Traverso 2016: 101–3, 153, 168–83), hindering their reintegration
into civilian life (see e.g., the autobiographical account of Höß [1947]
1963: 34–36) and creating a pool of fighters for paramilitary and radical
forces. No wonder that war veterans formed the backbone of several
fascist movements emerging in the 1920s and 1930s, ranging from Italy
to Estonia (Kasekamp 1993, 2015).
Except for the post-Napoleonic era of autocratic restoration in Europe,
none of the other reactionary waves were fueled by such collective PTSD.
During the second half of the twentieth century, Latin America, for
instance, was spared large-scale warfare. Most guerrilla movements
inspired by the Cuban Revolution were so weak and fleeting that their
determined suppression did not have traumatic repercussions, certainly
not of a magnitude comparable to WWI.
As regards economic challenges, devastating hyperinflation weakened
several liberal regimes in Central and Eastern Europe during the early
1920s, most prominently and consequentially Germany. Shortly there-
after, the Great Depression created tremendous economic and social
hardship across the world during the 1930s, discredited existing democ-
racies, and strengthened their radical enemies. By contrast, no massive
economic shocks afflicted Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s,
when many democracies collapsed (Mainwaring and Pérez-Liñán 2013:
101, 110–13). And the hardening of Middle-East despotism after the
Iranian Revolution coincided with the regional boom caused by the
second OPEC oil price increase. Similarly, the backlash against the post-
communist color revolutions led by Putin also occurred during a
petroleum-fueled bonanza.
During the interwar years, ethnic resentments and nationality conflicts
added fuel to the fire consuming so many democracies. The dismantling of
four multi-ethnic empires in and after WWI (Habsburg, Hohenzollern,
Ottoman, and Romanov) created many new states with contested borders
and serious religious and ethnic tensions. Mistrust and contention were
rife in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, where titular nationalities aggres-
sively asserted their hard-earned interests and rights. The newly dominant
forces excluded and discriminated against minority groupings, which
often counted on support from neighboring countries. Hungary, for
 The Exceptional Complexity of the Interwar Reverse Wave 43

instance, had suffered grievous mutilation, losing three quarters of its

Habsburg-era territory – an inexhaustible source of trouble in a volatile
region. The territorial winners, in turn, such as Romania and Yugoslavia,
struggled to integrate a congeries of nationalities and religious groupings
into new nation states.
As ample research shows, democracy has notorious difficulty surviving
in such conflictual settings (Linz and Stepan 1996: chap. 2). To a greater
or lesser extent, these ethnic and nationality problems contributed to
numerous breakdowns in Eastern Europe, most clearly in Yugoslavia in
1929. Once again, there was no equivalent in other reverse waves, except
the suppression of the European revolutions of 1848–49. The spread of
re-foundational military regimes in Latin America during the 1960s and
1970s, for instance, affected a region of consolidated nation states. And in
the Mid-Eastern reaction to the Iranian Revolution and the authoritarian
rollback against the color revolutions, internal tensions and communal
conflicts were not nearly as important as during the interwar years.
Last, but not least, the striking advance of democracy after WWI,
especially in the new states of Central and Eastern Europe, created many
fledgling, fragile regimes that faced risks of collapse from the beginning
(Kershaw 2015: 121–34). The eagerness to emulate the most advanced
nations, the Western democracies, had implanted liberal pluralism in
structurally unpropitious settings, namely backward societies suffering
from stark inequalities, ethnic cleavages, and economic shocks
(Gunitsky 2017: 6, 32–37; Leonhard 2017). Indeed, democracy often
fails at first try because a viable institutional framework tailored to a
country’s specific conditions is difficult to construct; moreover, actors
newly liberated from longstanding autocracy insist on pushing their
pent-up demands and are reluctant to engage in compromise, the life-
blood of democracy (Huntington 1991: 17, 25, 42). This weakness and
immaturity helped destroy some democracies soon after their foundation,
as in Poland in 1926, yet these problems exerted their deleterious effects
throughout the interwar years, as in Estonia in 1933/34.
Once again, no similar democratic overstretch and subsequent
retrenchment occurred in Latin America after the Cuban Revolution of
1959. Indeed, the new democracies of Colombia and Venezuela, both
inaugurated in 1958, survived the authoritarian riptide. By contrast, the
old democracies of Chile and Uruguay, instituted in 1932 and 1942,
succumbed. The other reactionary cascades affected regions where few
liberal democracies had emerged in the first place. As there was no
democratic overstretch to reverse, they brought mainly the hardening of
44 Theory: The Double Deterrent Effect

existing authoritarian regimes through intensified repression and a further

curtailment of very limited, precarious liberties.
In sum, the interwar years stand out because a torrent of problems and
challenges bore down on often weak democracies. Due to this accumula-
tion of difficulties, the massive advance of autocracy had multi-causal
origins, different from other authoritarian riptides. Legacies of total war,
unprecedented economic crises, ethnic conflicts and problems of state-
hood, and democratic inexperience and institutional weakness affected
countries that were also in the throes of the double deterrent effect.
While confronting these acute issues and strains, many interwar dem-
ocracies also suffered from underlying limitations and vulnerabilities
associated with low development levels. In most of Eastern and
Southern Europe, agriculture prevailed while industrialization and urban-
ization had not advanced very far. Poverty was widespread, mass educa-
tion deficient, and social indicators deplorable (Janos 1982; Berend
1998). Elites often took advantage of economic destitution and social
inequality to control substantial parts of the population through cliente-
listic networks, which stunted citizens’ political autonomy. Personalism
and patronage politics distorted and undermined institutional rules.
Political parties lacked organizational strength and programmatic com-
mitments, and civil society was incipient, often confined to a few urban
centers.As a wealth of research shows, low modernization hinders demo-
cratic survival (Lipset 1959; Rueschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens 1992:
13–27; Przeworski and Limongi 1997; Teorell 2010: 54–59). This struc-
tural “backwardness” (Janos 1982; Berend 1998) was a root cause for
democracies’ collapse across Eastern and Southern Europe. The lack of
socioeconomic advancement created weaknesses and vulnerabilities that
proved fatal when the above-mentioned problems and challenges
occurred. By contrast, Europe’s more developed North and West pre-
served democracy, as Cornell, Møller, and Skaaning (2017, 2020)
recently highlighted. Central Europe constituted a transition zone with
mixed outcomes, namely, breakdowns in Austria and Germany, yet sur-
vival in Czechoslovakia, which was significantly more developed than its
Eastern neighbors.
Yet while socioeconomic development helps account for the cross-
national differences in regime outcomes during the interwar years (Berg-
Schlosser and De Meur 1994: 256–57), the massive wave of autocracy
diverges from the diachronic expectations of modernization theory,
which foresees gradual progress toward political liberalism and democ-
racy. The drastic and sustained reversal of the predicted trend shows the
 The Exceptional Complexity of the Interwar Reverse Wave 45

crucial importance of the multitude of difficulties and crises besieging

democracies during the 1920s and 1930s. Only because of this unusual
problem load did the weaknesses resulting from socioeconomic back-
wardness pave the way for autocracy. While modernization explains the
differential resilience of liberal-pluralist regimes, the moving causes of
democratic breakdown and autocratic imposition arose from the multiple
pressures afflicting democracies. Underlying structural conditions account
well for the pattern of regime outcomes, but they do not elucidate the
push factors, causal mechanisms, and processes of democratic break-
downs and authoritarian and fascist regime formation.

The Impact of the Problems and Challenges Facing

Interwar Democracies
How much impact on the reverse wave did the variegated challenges and
fragilities have? The different problems would have predicted a jumble of
setbacks, with democratic breakdowns here and there, yet probably
followed by renewed advances, especially after economic crises passed.
But in Europe during the 1920s and 1930s, political regime development
was strikingly unidirectional, almost uniformly away from liberal democ-
racy; a massive groundswell of regression prevailed (Huntington 1991:
14–18; Kailitz 2017; Cornell, Møller, and Skaaning 2020: chap. 2). None
of the specific difficulties just examined can explain this broad sweep of
autocracy’s proliferation nor the processes and mechanisms driving it.
The theories highlighting these factors are therefore not fully convincing
for the interwar years (Berg-Schlosser and De Meur 1994: 276).
Legacies of total war and problems of incipient statehood did not
prove uniformly important. After all, the undemocratic groundswell
reached beyond the new nations arising after WWI and affected long-
established countries in Southern Europe and Latin America as well.
Similarly, former participants in WWI fell under dictatorship, yet so did
neutral nations such as Spain and Brazil. Moreover, authoritarianism and
fascism were imposed both in countries that had emerged victorious (for
instance, Romania and Italy) and those suffering defeat (such as Hungary
and Germany). Consequently, WWI experiences cannot account for the
massive reverse wave.
Despite their unusual severity, economic crises were not decisive for
autocracy’s proliferation either, as Cornell, Møller, and Skaaning (2020:
chap. 5; see also Linz 1978a) recently confirmed. During the 1920s and
1930s, lengthy recessions did significantly boost radical-right vote shares
46 Theory: The Double Deterrent Effect

(De Bromhead, Eichengreen, and O’Rourke 2013: 390–95), but fascists’

increasing support did not doom democracy. Instead, extreme-right
parties won government power only in Italy and Germany; and even after
the Great Depression, they achieved drastic electoral upsurges that pro-
voked the preemptive imposition of conservative authoritarianism only in
Austria, Estonia, and Romania (see Chapter 8).1
In general, economic crises do not predict interwar regime develop-
ments. Democratic breakdowns happened not only in nations scorched by
hyperinflation, such as Austria and Poland, but also in countries that
avoided this scourge, such as Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. Similarly, not all
countries devastated by the Great Depression fell under dictators (see
recently Kershaw 2015: 231–32). Indeed, autocratic impositions occurred
in fairly equal numbers both before and after 1929 (see table 1.1). Thus,
Black Friday did not make a huge difference for the authoritarian wave,
which started in Hungary in 1919, a full decade earlier. Germany, where
the Great Depression clearly fomented the NSDAP’s electoral break-
through that eventually led to Hitler’s Machtergreifung, remained excep-
tional. In general, economic crises do not play a crucial role in
democracy’s downfall, as wide-ranging recent research shows
(Przeworski 2019: 30–31).
Other problems invoked by scholars also had only a limited impact.
Country case studies often highlight specific institutional dysfunctional-
ities, but these particularistic arguments do not add up to a persuasive
overarching explanation. Prominent concerns focus on the overly power-
ful position of the president in Germany’s Weimar constitution, which
allowed for rule by emergency decree via the infamous article 48 (Bracher
[1955] 1978: 43–52; Schulz 1975: 269–72; Bernhard 2005: chap. 2). But
other specialists bemoan the executive branch’s unusual weakness in the
Baltic countries, where legislative assemblies reigned supreme (Von
Rauch 1995: 76–79, 146–48). But these specific accounts highlight diver-
gent problems and do not explain the autocratic riptide as such.
The “universal failure of democracy in parliamentary regimes . . . in
that period” (Metcalf 1998: 346) also casts doubt on a more general
argument, namely Juan Linz’s (1990; Linz and Valenzuela 1994) forceful
claims that presidentialism seriously threatens democratic stability. In the
1920s and 1930s, however, parliamentarism revealed striking

1
Where authoritarian leaders used fascist movements as auxiliaries for instituting or
hardening dictatorships, as in Brazil, Portugal, and Spain, they would probably have acted
and succeeded on their own, even without extreme-right help.
 The Exceptional Complexity of the Interwar Reverse Wave 47

vulnerability; accordingly, even Linz’s (2002: 11) later work acknow-

ledges “the crisis of parliamentarism” during the interwar years. Indeed,
the last wide-ranging analysis did not find that the system of government
significantly affects regime survival (Cheibub 2007). For all these reasons,
institutionalist approaches, predominant in political science during
recent decades, do not offer very strong, convincing accounts of this
reverse wave.
The great-power argument presented in chapter one (Owen 2010; Boix
2011; Gunitsky 2014, 2017) cannot easily explain the autocratic wildfire
either. During the 1920s and 1930s, foreign pressure and imposition
played only a very limited and belated role. Due to their intense national-
ism, right-wingers across the world were reluctant to look like puppets or
instruments of fascist Italy or Nazi Germany (Hagemann 2001: 74, 81,
94; Larsen 2001: 733–38).2 Moreover, Italy lacked the strength to push
its regime model successfully, and Nazi Germany gained such clout only
during the mid-1930s. Therefore, great-power influence cannot explain
the autocratic reverse wave, which had started in 1919 already.
Interestingly, moreover, even in the territories he dominated or con-
quered, Hitler allowed for fascist regimes only rarely (e.g., Croatia:
Trifkovic 2011: chaps. 6, 9). Instead, he found the stability imposed by
authoritarianism more beneficial for the Axis war effort; strategic inter-
ests displaced ideological predilections. Consequently, Germany’s fascist
leader did not do much to promote fascism abroad.3 This reluctance to
spread his ideological model became strikingly obvious in Romania,
where Hitler consistently cooperated with authoritarian rulers and con-
sented to their brutal suppression of a powerful fascist movement, which
desperately pleaded for his support (Heinen 1986: 376, 427–29, 444–53;
Sandu 2014: 170–71, 190, 332, 345, 353–54). Therefore, great-power
theories, even Gunitsky’s (2017: chap. 4) recent account of the 1930s,
cannot easily explain the interwar cascade.
Finally, intellectual challenges arising from the spread of cultural pes-
simism (Bracher 1982: part I; Burrow 2000; Buruma and Margalit 2004)
discussed in Chapter 1 played only an indirect role. This change in the
Zeitgeist certainly inspired increasing doubts in liberal democracy and

2
Efforts at maintaining some independence occurred even in a least likely case, namely tiny
Slovakia’s relations to mighty Nazi Germany from 1939–45 (Tönsmeyer 2007).
3
Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy did promote fascist ideas across the world, however,
targeting especially their expatriate communities, which were extensive in Latin America
(Gentile 2001; Hagemann 2001).
48 Theory: The Double Deterrent Effect

helped prepare the ground for autocracy’s proliferation (Linz 2002:

47–53). But this ideational change operated in a loose, atmospheric way
and did not directly affect reactionary regime installation. After all,
fascism, the novel model evoking the greatest enthusiasm (Hamilton
1971), spread very little from its origin in Italy; only Germany adopted
it full-scale. Even Mussolini admirers refused to import fascism and
installed authoritarianism instead, both in Europe (Oberländer 2001;
Pasteur 2007) and Latin America (Deutsch 1999). Thus, the enormous
appeal of fascism failed to prompt much emulation. Regime change
did not simply follow the Zeitgeist; instead, most elites preferred
stodgy and unexciting, but more predictable and safe authoritarianism.
Even autocrats who opportunistically and temporarily emulated select
pieces of the fascist toolkit, such as Portugal’s António de Oliveira
Salazar, categorically rejected core features of Mussolini’s regime, espe-
cially its totalitarian drive for unlimited power and its penchant for
violence (Ferro 1939: 175–81).
Indeed, fascism’s contagion effects were outweighed and overpowered
by its deterrent effects. While inspiring many people, this innovative
regime model also scared many others, especially conservative politicians
and societal elites. Because those groupings commanded great clout,
fascism provoked stronger aversion than support. The resulting backlash
to this new model of reactionary rule, which had emerged as the best
antidote to the other new model of “the age of extremes,” namely
revolutionary communism, brought forth the double deterrent effect,
which profoundly shaped autocracy’s spread during the interwar years.
Above and beyond all the problems and challenges discussed before,
this double deterrent effect was the common impetus behind the wave-like
sweep of democratic collapse. The inordinate fear of communism and
then the strong concerns about fascism were the principal driving forces
of the autocratic groundswell engulfing so many countries during the
1920s and 1930s. Under the spell of cognitive shortcuts activated by
Lenin’s 1917 success, many political forces saw a risk of Bolshevik
revolution even where communism commanded little support. Similarly,
Hitler’s resolute power grab fueled intense concern about fascist take-
overs (Traverso 2016: 259–60) and provoked rash defensive reactions,
including preventive palace coups.
The apparent assault from the radical left and the pressures from the
radical right were the principal causal mechanisms propelling the massive
autocratic cascade of the interwar years. To save their countries from
communism, and then from fascism as well, established elites spearheaded
 The Main Causal Mechanisms 49

a wave of democratic breakdown. Attention therefore turns to the double

deterrent effect, which provides a crucial complement to the factors
discussed so far.

   :   ,

  

Communist Revolution and Its Monumental Impact

The Russian Revolution profoundly transformed politics in Europe, and
the world more broadly (recently Daly and Trofimov 2017; Rinke and
Wildt 2017). After years of total war had already strained the socio-
political order to the breaking point, Lenin’s surprising takeover caused
an earthquake that shattered the prevailing political coordinates and
opened up previously unthinkable options, which created great opportun-
ities for some, but severe risks for others. Suddenly, deep-reaching revo-
lution producing a total systemic transformation appeared on the political
agenda. By establishing the feasibility of ambitious ideological projects,
the Russian Revolution drastically expanded the scope of conflict and
turned politics into an all-out struggle over messianic salvation versus
satanic damnation. Yet while the frontlines in these titanic clashes were
clear and sharp, their outcome was utterly unpredictable; consequently,
fundamental uncertainty and “confusion” reigned (Kurzman 2004:
333–39; see also Ermakoff 2008: xxiii, 192–93; Vincent 2016: 388–94).
The Russian Revolution came as a shock to left-wingers and right-
wingers alike. During the preceding decades, the redistributive demands
prompted by “the social question” had effectively de-radicalized. While
still professing adherence to Marxism, socialist and social-democratic
parties had in practice shelved the quest for revolution and pursued
reforms through participation in elections and parliament, as Eduard
Bernstein’s ([1899] 1991) revisionism recommended (Berman 2006:
35–46). This strategy looked promising because social-democratic parties
were steadily gaining electoral strength and parliamentary experience.
The exertions and strains of WWI seemed bound to bring the final
breakthrough because the working class would be rewarded for its indis-
pensable contributions to the patriotic cause with additional socioeco-
nomic and political concessions. The future thus seemed to lie with non-
revolutionary gradualism as the best path to success (Miller and Potthoff
1986: 44–54, 60–63).
50 Theory: The Double Deterrent Effect

Yet this whole line of thinking suddenly faced a massive challenge

when Lenin’s followers “stormed” the Winter Palace. As the Bolsheviks
forcefully seized power, retained it against fierce resistance, initiated a
profound overhaul of the socioeconomic order, and resolutely installed a
totalitarian dictatorship, global politics dramatically changed: Socialist
revolution was possible, after all. With all its dreadful costs, the total
overhaul envisioned by radical Marxists now turned into a real political
option (Furet 1999: 62–68; Eley 2002: 152–55). This unexpected innov-
ation exploded the longstanding parameters of politics. Questions that
seemed settled were suddenly opened up anew. Because the public
agenda now extended to fundamental issues that had never been raised
before, the scope of conflict drastically expanded. Politics assumed wholly
new dimensions and turned into a struggle over ambitious projects and
grand visions. The range of possibilities grew vastly, and so did the
uncertainty facing actors of all stripes. As “agents face[d] a broader than
typical range of options” and as “their choices from among these options
[were] likely to have a significant impact on subsequent outcomes,” they
confronted a critical juncture of enormous importance (Capoccia and
Kelemen 2007: 348).
In the resulting struggles over communism’s millenarian project, the
stakes were monumental, involving life or death for thousands, soon
millions of people. Ultimately, the fight came down to political power;
outcomes depended on which side could dominate the other. Therefore,
while conflicts over socioeconomic distribution added much fuel to the
fire, political issues and political resources, especially control over the
state and its military force, proved crucial. Even in Russia itself, a political
organization – Lenin’s vanguard party – had seized power, not “the
working class”; moreover, only determined coercion and military might
enabled the Bolsheviks to retain power. Indeed, Lenin won because he
temporarily suspended communism’s socioeconomic goals by encour-
aging peasants to grab land for themselves – an opportunistic concession
that Stalin then brutally reversed by forcefully collectivizing agriculture
(Skocpol 1979: chap. 6).
As in the Russian precedent, in all subsequent conflicts during the
interwar years, political forces and organizations took the lead and
mostly shaped the outcomes, not socioeconomic groupings and class
forces. Business and labor, peasants and landowners clearly mattered a
great deal, and their distributional divergences aggravated tensions and
provoked struggles. But the leading actors in all these troubles and
travails, which had the greatest involvement and impact on political
 The Main Causal Mechanisms 51

regime developments, were political leaders, organizations, and institu-

tions, such as presidents, parties, mass movements, and militaries (in
general, see recently Geddes, Wright, and Frantz 2018: 7–10; see also
Capoccia and Ziblatt 2010: 949–51). Theories that prioritize distribu-
tional issues (e.g., Acemoglu and Robinson 2005) and class relations (e.g.,
Rueschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens 1992: see espec. 104–5, 109–11,
121) make only a limited contribution and are not fully convincing.4 In
the “age of extremes” (Hobsbawm 1996; see also Bracher 1982;
Mazower 2000) ushered in by the Bolshevist takeover, politics clearly
reigned supreme (Berg-Schlosser and Mitchell 2000: 20).
By inflaming political-ideological conflict, the Russian Revolution had,
of course, a divergent impact on different political forces, depending on
their interests and values. While people sympathetic to Lenin’s bold
project felt inspired, those who harbored reservations or fears were
repelled. Thus, the Bolshevist overhaul exerted both demonstration and
deterrent effects. Left-wing extremists in many countries sought to follow
Lenin’s footsteps (Fayet 2014), while a broad gamut of forces, ranging
from the right to the moderate left, was determined to block and combat
these replication efforts. These anti-Bolshevist sectors saw the “success-
ful” Russian Revolution as a threat (Wirsching 2007: 146–53), and their
worries grew with the quick wave of communist emulation attempts. The
stimulus that Bolshevism’s demonstration effects gave to the extreme left
thus reinforced the deterrent effects on the right, center, and reformist left.
The following two subsections examine these forces of attraction and
repulsion in turn.

Demonstration Effects of the Russian Revolution

The rash of revolutionary efforts galvanized by Lenin’s takeover was
fueled primarily by a sudden change in feasibility judgments. Whereas
over the preceding decades, left-wingers had come to doubt whether a
rapid, total transformation of society could be effected, the Bolsheviks’
feat dramatically proved the actual possibility of revolution. In fact, the
seemingly unchallengeable Romanov autocracy collapsed with surprising
ease (Skocpol 1979: 98–99). And in the resulting vacuum, a small contin-
gent of communists seized power with equal ease – and then retained it
against all odds. What a stunning success!

4
See in general Ertman (1998: 485–87, 490–92); Collier (1999); Haggard and Kaufman
(2016); and Geddes, Wright, and Frantz (2018: 45–57).
52 Theory: The Double Deterrent Effect

In the eyes of left-wingers across the world, the Russian Communists

thus proved that a profound, comprehensive social revolution was dis-
tinctly possible. The Bolshevist precedent inspired hope because it
occurred under such unlikely circumstances. After all, Tsarist rule had
been the firmest autocracy in Europe; if this mighty fortress crumbled,
then other, less fearsome states would be even easier to topple. Moreover,
socialist revolution won out in a society that looked very unpropitious
from a Marxist class perspective. Capitalism was only in its early stages;
consequently, the proletariat, the main revolutionary actor, was minus-
cule in size and organized in narrow-minded economistic unions, as Lenin
himself (1967: 35–38) complained. That communism nevertheless tri-
umphed showed the impact of political agency and suggested what differ-
ence sheer willpower could make. Given that Russia’s revolutionary
vanguard managed to turn the peasantry from a “sack of potatoes”
(Marx [1852] 1971: 117) into foot soldiers of radical change, then the
chances of revolution should be even higher in countries with a large
working class. Moreover, now that the weakest link of imperialistic
finance capitalism was cracked, the world revolution was bound to sweep
into Central and Western Europe, which advanced capitalism made ripe
for socialist transformations.
Thus, for far-left circles, the Russian Revolution strikingly proved the
feasibility of socialist revolution (Luebbert 1991: 194–95). Profound
change suddenly seemed possible. Given that such a massive transform-
ation could happen in backward Russia, Lenin’s spark would also ignite
the communist flame in the industrialized countries to the west. These
drastically revised feasibility judgments informed a wide range of efforts
to emulate the Bolshevists’ assault on power and overhaul the existing
order from bottom to top. Thus, the Russian Revolution exerted powerful
demonstration effects.
Chapter 3 amply documents that the principal causal mechanism
triggering a riptide of communist uprisings, especially in Central
Europe, were the possibility assessments suddenly reshaped by the
Russian Revolution. Innumerable statements by left-wing extremists and
prospective revolutionaries show that the Bolshevist takeover induced
them to update their probability calculations drastically. By contrast,
there is little evidence that the Russian events augmented the normative
appeal of communism and altered left-wingers’ fundamental political
values. After all, Lenin’s takeover plunged the country into years of cruel
civil war, totalitarian oppression, economic self-destruction, starvation,
and national dismemberment, as not only ideological enemies but even
 The Main Causal Mechanisms 53

other leftists such as Germany’s Social Democrats did not tire of high-
lighting.5 As “Bolshevism” revealed itself as “a barbaric Asiatic caricature
of scientific Socialism” (Scheidemann 1929, vol. 2: 247; see also Kautsky
[1918] 1981: 82; Orlow 1982: 199), observers who were not ideologic-
ally committed to communism before had no reason to attribute greater
normative value to this apparent disaster.
Those who had embraced socialist revolution already, however, were
fired up by the feasibility judgments derived from Lenin’s takeover. The
new belief in the possibility of thoroughgoing transformation inspired
left-wing extremists in a wide range of countries to spearhead imitation
efforts. If Russia’s Communists had succeeded, why could their brethren
across Europe, and maybe the rest of the world, not achieve similar feats?
Based on these updated probability calculations, from 1918 onward
many armed uprisings erupted as radical leftists undertook frequent
attempts at forceful takeovers (Hobsbawm 1996: 65–69; Richers 2007:
91–96; Priestland 2016: 88–91; Beyrau 2017: 72–74). These emulation
efforts were particularly frequent and intense and seemed to have the
greatest chances of success in the unsettled, war-battered countries of
Central and Eastern Europe, particularly Germany (Angress 1972;
Broué 2006). But even faraway Spain, which as a neutral nation avoided
the strains of WWI, experienced a “Bolshevik triennium” with numerous
strikes and revolts (Ucelay-Da Cal 2017: 257–59).
As the Spanish example suggests, these attempts to promote revolu-
tionary change were widespread and, thus, surprisingly indiscriminate.
Marxist doctrine would have targeted advanced capitalist countries, such
as England, France, and Germany. But while Germany was clearly in the
line of communist fire, so was a stark variety of other countries, ranging
from Spain to Hungary, Finland, and even Brazil. This enormous diver-
sity suggests that radical leftists “got carried away” by the inferences
derived from the Petrograd success. They were not guided by systematic
feasibility judgments that considered the specific opportunities, obstacles,
and risks facing attempted takeovers in each particular setting. Instead,
the Soviet precedent made them jump to the conclusion that socialist
revolution was possible virtually anywhere and everywhere.
In sum, the Russian Revolution unleashed powerful demonstration
effects and propelled a wave of isomorphic imitation attempts. Taking

5
Merz (1995: 175–79, 182, 185); see also Kautsky ([1918] 1981: 57, 65–68, 74, 88, 103);
Ebert (1926, vol. 2: 126–27); Noske (1920: 61); Bernstein ([1921] 1998): 50, 147–49;
Scheidemann (1929, vol. 2: 262).
54 Theory: The Double Deterrent Effect

inspiration from Lenin’s example, leftist radicals all over the world,
particularly in Europe, made determined assaults on power and tried
hard to promote socialist revolutions. These contentious initiatives, often
advanced with the force of arms, also drew on advice and support from
the USSR. Moreover, radical left-wingers sometimes attempted to cooper-
ate across countries; for instance, Hungary’s Soviet Republic of
1919 influenced the fleeting Council Republic in Munich and sought
direct connections to the Bavarian comrades. For these reasons, it cer-
tainly seemed that left-wing extremism was on the advance.

Deterrent Effects of the Russian Revolution

This upsurge of leftist radicalism scared most other political segments,
however, ranging from the right to the social-democratic left. Based on
their self-interests, political goals, and ideological convictions, these
forces rejected the revolutionary transformation promoted by Lenin’s
disciples. What communists saw as enormous improvements, they con-
demned as dangerous destruction with dire consequences for socioeco-
nomic and political progress. For them, the terrible suffering in the
nascent USSR conclusively proved these fears. Therefore, they tried hard
to spare their own countries this disastrous fate and combated the
advance troops of the communist world revolution with full force (Merz
1995; Bernecker 2002: 22–25; Pasteur 2007: 12–16).
For these reasons, the riptide of communist revolts inspired by Lenin’s
takeover prompted a corresponding wave of determined counterrevolu-
tion. As left-wingers mobilized to attack the existing system, right-
wingers, centrists, and moderate leftists mustered all of their resources
to squash these efforts and prevent their recurrence. Left-wing contention
therefore drew resolute, often brutal repression. Most of these battles
were highly lopsided: The small numbers of left-wing radicals spearhead-
ing isomorphic emulation efforts provoked the formation of a broad
phalanx of forces that suppressed these uprisings. In fact, moderate left-
wingers were particularly incensed because their gradual, reformist strat-
egy was premised on the impossibility of successful revolution. For them,
therefore, the feasibility judgments that inspired Lenin’s emulators were
potentially disruptive – and especially objectionable. Because Social
Democrats had thought through this problem so thoroughly and had
debated it extensively, they condemned the precipitous revolutionary
attempts of the radical left as ill-considered, irresponsible adventurism,
if not lunacy (Müller-Franken 1928: 252–53; Scheidemann 1929: 280,
 The Main Causal Mechanisms 55

291; Keil 1947: 135, 138). They also denounced these uprisings as a
relapse into the obsolete putschism of nineteenth-century revolutionaries
(“Blanquism”: Bernstein [1921] 1998: 50, 147–48, 180; see also
Wirsching 2007: 140–45).
With their numerical preponderance and their advantage in organiza-
tional and coercive resources, these broad coalitions uniformly defeated
the attempts to push toward communism. The riptide of revolutionary
emulation hit a brick wall of counterrevolutionary containment. Most
often, these victories were quick and decisive. Thus, the feasibility judg-
ments that left-wing extremists drew from the Soviet precedent found
drastic disconfirmation in the barrages of gunfire unleashed by establish-
ment and reformist sectors. The indiscriminate efforts to spread profound
transformation to the widest range of countries proved illusionary every-
where; not a single nation fell under communism.6 While the Russian
Revolution had induced left-wingers to jump to facile conclusions about
its replicability, this optimism was quickly revealed as unwarranted and
baseless. Instead of the proliferation of ambitious progressive change,
there was a counter-wave of efforts to protect the foundations of the
established order.
The universal defeat of far-left uprisings allayed the acute fears and
occasional panic that had initially gripped status-quo defenders. But these
clear-cut victories over Lenin’s most extremist emulators did not put to
rest the broader concerns about the demonstration effects emanating from
the Russian Revolution. After all, Soviet rule in Russia survived its near-
death experience in the fierce civil war of 1918–1920, and the communist
leadership continued to promote world revolution (Daly and Trofimov
2017: 108, 111, 116, 120–23). Accordingly, further revolts erupted
across the globe for years, though with diminishing frequency, as in
Estonia in 1924, Indonesia in 1926, and Brazil in 1935 (Hobsbawm
1996: 71).
Moreover, radical leftists sooner or later learned from the drastic
failure of direct, armed assaults on power, changed their strategy, and
sought to broaden their influence through organizational and electoral
efforts, as the Comintern recommended (Vatlin and Smith 2014:
189–90). They tried hard to capture trade unions and form or infiltrate
political parties. Because many governments sooner or later restricted or
outlawed communist agitation, these efforts often proceeded in

6
Even the longest-lasting effort, in Hungary in 1919, collapsed after four months (see
Chapter 4).
56 Theory: The Double Deterrent Effect

clandestine ways; left-wing extremists created front organizations with

deceptive names. This subterranean approach exacerbated the fears of
establishment sectors, who had difficulty assessing the real strength of
their mortal enemies. Due to this uncertainty, thinking in worst-case
scenarios often prevailed so that centrist and especially right-wing polit-
icians suspected every left-winger of being a communist. Fear of subver-
sion thus helped to keep concerns over revolutionary machinations alive.
The persistence of these worries weakened support for liberal democ-
racy and strengthened right-wing groupings, many of which had only
conditional tolerance for democratic rule, if they were not committed to
authoritarianism from the beginning. In the eyes of conservatives and
reactionaries, liberal safeguards and democratic pluralism aided and pro-
tected communists, the sworn enemies of economic and political liberty.
Democratic rule was too soft and ineffectual to eradicate the revolution-
ary threat definitively. As Mussolini ([1932] 2018: 21) proclaimed
with typical bombast, “Liberalism is now on the point of closing the
doors of its deserted temples because nations feel that . . . its indifference
in political and moral matters causes, as it has already caused, the sure
ruin of States.” Instead of democracy, a stronger type of rule that would
concentrate power and unsheathe the sword was required. Thus, the
continuing efforts to promote communism, now through organizational
and electoral activities, also exerted powerful deterrent effects that
boosted the anti-communist, yet also anti-liberal and increasingly anti-
democratic right.

The Rise of Fascism: Radical Counterrevolution

The Russian Revolution’s deterrent effects had an additional repercussion
that profoundly shaped the autocratic wave of the interwar years: The
backlash to Bolshevism provided a powerful impulse for the emergence of
fascism, which appeared as a particularly effective model for reactionary
counterrevolution.7 Adherents of this new ideology believed that the
unprecedented threat posed by communism required unusually strong
safeguards through totalitarian counter-mobilization. In their view, the
authoritarian rule with which conservative elites sought to guarantee
sociopolitical stability could no longer fulfill its pacifying purpose. In
mass societies, where large numbers of people craved political

7
See Carsten (1982: 176, 182–83, 187–88); Payne (1995: 76–78); and Paxton (2005: 19,
44, 60–61, 68, 70, 81, 84, 88–89, 102–5, 110, 116, 196).
 The Main Causal Mechanisms 57

participation, the citizenry’s coercive exclusion that hierarchical, non-

mobilizational authoritarianism entails (Linz 2000: 159–69; Linz 2002:
64–69) enabled left-wing radicals to garner support with their promises of
dramatic social improvements. Communists with their clandestine, sub-
versive tactics could take advantage of authoritarianism’s omission and
fill the vacuum left by the neglect of the masses. Where the established
regime did not absorb citizens’ participatory energies, its extremist foes
could skillfully occupy the void and recruit foot soldiers for their
revolution.
Communism’s special threat thus seemed to expose the congenital
weakness of conservative authoritarianism. The political exclusion of
the populace was risky, as the very downfall of Tsarist autocracy in
Russia suggested. Status-quo defenders now faced dangerous enemies that
incessantly promoted their radical projects with direct appeals to the
masses. Therefore, elitist rule could no longer ensure stability. Given the
radical left’s Siren songs about the leveling of social inequality, even
repression, the principal control instrument of authoritarian dictators,
could prove insufficient for controlling the population.
These doubts about authoritarianism’s capacity to protect the socio-
political order against the unprecedented communist threat helped to give
rise to the most ambitious and radical project for fortifying autocratic
rule, namely fascism (overviews in Payne 1995; Mann 2004; Bosworth
2009c; Griffin 2018). As the greatest political novelty of the interwar
years, fascism was fed by despair about the shattering impact of WWI’s
senseless mass slaughter and by profound fear about the unprecedented
danger arising from the Russian Revolution. As the eruption of
Bolshevism fundamentally jeopardized the sociopolitical system, import-
ant right-wing forces found themselves at a loss about how to regain
stable ground under their feet.
Mussolini’s fascism and Hitler’s even fiercer version then appeared as
promising solutions to this conundrum. Through a thoroughgoing polit-
ical transformation that went far beyond authoritarian stabilization
efforts, fascism promised to eradicate the left-wing threat and install a
firm order that sustained clear hierarchies through totalitarian mobiliza-
tion and forceful integration of the populace. A frontal, violent attack on
communists, Marxist socialists, and other “enemies of the people” would
eliminate the seeds of conflict, avert revolution, and help to forge a tight
“people’s community” (Volksgemeinschaft). Individuality and plurality
would merge into the collective unity embodied in an outstanding leader,
who guided the people on a millenarian quest for redemption and
58 Theory: The Double Deterrent Effect

salvation. In this way, disagreement would (be made to) disappear,

bottom-up contention would become impossible, and sociopolitical
stability would reign forever. Thus, fascism depicted itself as the
perfect antidote against the subversive tendencies of communism (Nolte
[1963] 1979).
This radical project of counterrevolution forged an unusual blend of
atavistic and modern elements (Griffin 2007, 2018; Müller 2011: 101–24;
see also Bracher 1982: 158–60; Herf 1984). Mussolini’s fascism emulated
the Caesars of ancient Rome with its hierarchical authority structure
revolving around a supremely powerful leader (Griffin 2018: 68–69; see
also Mosse 1999: 30–35). Yet it was also adapted to the twentieth century
by resting on popular mobilization and mass integration, which allowed
the charismatic Duce to keep established elites, such as conservative
politicians, the king, and the church under control. While rejecting the
rationalization and legalization of authority that characterizes the
modern age (M. Weber 1976: 122–30), fascism had modern features of
its own by employing cutting-edge technology (Mosse 1999: 27–28) and
by forging a novel political system, all-encompassing totalitarianism.
Accordingly, fascism sought to win over the population with advanced
propaganda techniques, rather than excluding it through traditional
elitist, oligarchical domination. Thus, fascism embodied a unique com-
bination of old and new features (E. Weber 1976: 451–54; Mosse 1999:
chap. 1; Griffin 2007), of backward- and forward-looking goals and
strategies, as contemporary observers highlighted (Sforza 1925: 362–65;
Armstrong 1933: 595).
This strange mixture, which made fascists “the revolutionaries of
counter-revolution” (Hobsbawm 1996: 117),8 was even more remarkable
in Hitler’s National Socialism (Bracher 1982: 170–82). This fiercest vari-
ant of fascism pushed the Italian original’s totalitarian tendencies to the
maximum. The Nazi leader concentrated absolute power and turned
polity and society into an efficient machine for pursuing his backward-
looking goals with ultra-modern techniques. The NS regime derived its
biological racism both from recent pseudo-scientific theories and from
mythical images of the Germanic warriors of Roman times. Similarly,
Hitler pursued his anachronistic project to enslave the Slavs and create a
German settler state in Eastern Europe (Snyder 2015; Traverso 2016:
104–5, 124) with high-tech tanks and novel jet airplanes (Müller 2011:

8
This revolutionary impetus was particularly strong among fascism’s more left-leaning
currents, such as Spain’s national syndicalism (Ledesma [1935] 2017: 36–38, 45, 92, 156).
 The Main Causal Mechanisms 59

121–23). And the Holocaust, the “final solution” of the centuries-old

“Jewish question,” used the most advanced procedures and mechanisms
of bureaucracy, science, and industry. Thus, the greatest irrationality of
goals drew on instrumental rationality and up-to-date technology for its
means (Herf 1984: 189). Of course, with its unprecedented combination
of very old and very new components, National Socialism differed funda-
mentally from conservative authoritarianism with its veneration of the
recent past and present.
Because its energetic dynamism contrasted with the apparent weak-
ness, exhaustion, and decadence of liberal democracy, fascism quickly
exerted substantial demonstration effects. In the eyes of many people
battered by WWI, shocked by the Russian Revolution, and assailed by
hyperinflation and later the Great Depression, this novel regime type
looked like a great recipe for salvation and redemption. After the unpre-
cedented destruction and atrocities that National Socialism soon caused,
observers often forget fascism’s enormous appeal during the interwar
years. Besides common people, many intellectuals, artists, writers, phil-
osophers, and scientists across the world admired Mussolini (Hamilton
1971; Melograni 1976: 233; Sternhell 1994: 237–58; Mosse 1999:
chap. 5; Kershaw 2015: 452–55). A whole group of young Romanian
intellectuals, for instance, including brilliant writers such as Emil Cioran
([1931–37] 2011: 73–80, 98–99, 107, 140–49, 189–90) and Mircea
Eliade,9 fell under Mussolini’s and Hitler’s spell and supported fascist
movements inside their own country. To all these people, economic and
political liberalism looked incapable of coping with the fierce ideological
battles provoked by Lenin’s power grab. As a more forceful regime
seemed necessary for withstanding the communist challenge, fascism’s
concentrated strength appeared uniquely promising.10
After emerging in Italy during the early 1920s, fascism therefore
started to spread. Imitative movements, which often used similar symbols
such as uni-colored shirts, sooner or later emerged across Europe and the

9
Eliade’s autobiography presents a whitewash and even claims distance from Hitler and
fascism (Eliade 1981: 292; Eliade 1988: 9–11, 63–66). However, he supported the fascist
Legion of the Archangel Michael from 1935 onward and even campaigned for it actively
in the election of December 1937 (Petreu 2005: 59, 63, 67–68, 71–72, 187, 206, 211,
214–15).
10
Accordingly, Cioran ([1931–37] 2011: 73–80, 98–99, 107) celebrated National
Socialism’s vitalistic force and destructive energy and went so far as to proclaim his great
admiration for Hitler when asked to comment on the Nazi leader’s mass massacre of the
SA leadership in mid-1934 (Cioran [1931–37] 2011: 140–51).
60 Theory: The Double Deterrent Effect

world. In fact, a number of radical right-wingers sought to emulate

Mussolini’s “March on Rome.” Because none of these audacious assaults
on power succeeded, fascist leaders and their parties moved toward the
effort to use elections for overcoming democracy with democratic means –
strikingly, just like communists did after the failure of their own emulative
uprisings (Loewenstein 1935a: 579–82). With this cunning strategy, some
extreme-right movements won considerable mass support, especially in
parts of Central and Eastern Europe, yet also in faraway Brazil. Citizens
were often receptive to fascism’s allure because they thought that
Mussolini’s achievements in Italy, and then Hitler’s early domestic and
international successes (Mosse 1999: 3–4, 37–38), held crucial lessons for
their own countries. For these reasons, fascist organizing surged across
Europe and beyond, especially during the 1930s (Hobsbawm 1996:
116–17; Gunitsky 2017: chap. 4).

Totalitarian Fascism and Authoritarian Conservatism: Attraction

and Rejection
Through its extremism in the fight against Marxism and the regeneration
of sociopolitical order, fascism unleashed not only demonstration effects
but also strong deterrent effects. Even among the counterrevolutionary
right, the new regime model stirred up intense debate and conflict.
Because fascism pushed for profound transformation rather than simple
restoration, it drew stark ambivalence from powerful establishment
sectors, such as traditional politicians, the military, big business, large
landowners, and religious leaders. On the one hand, these elites saw
fascist movements as welcome collaborators because they most energetic-
ally attacked the left. Therefore, they could serve as useful shock troops
against communists and Marxist socialists, whom establishment group-
ings feared as their most dangerous foes. As Gunitsky (2017: 105) high-
lights, citing Payne (1995: 16), these “common goals led to ‘numerous
instances of tactical alliances’ between fascists and conservatives.”
On the other hand, however, the simple syllogism, “the enemy of my
enemy is my friend,” was questionable, because fascism’s very forceful-
ness and its unaccountable and unpredictable leaders held their own risks.
What if fascists used brutal force not only against the left, but turned on
establishment sectors as well? Fascists wanted to enforce clear hierarchies,
but under their own predominance, rather than as mere agents and
auxiliaries of the old elites. Indeed, in the radical analysis of fascism,
those elites’ selfishness and incompetence were responsible for the very
 The Main Causal Mechanisms 61

emergence of the far-left threat; unresolved problems in the ancien régime

had allowed the communist challenge to arise in the first place. The left’s
reliable eradication and the guarantee of lasting stability therefore
required the fascist leader to subjugate these hapless elites to a new
totalitarian system. As right-wing extremists embraced an “anti-conserva-
tive radicalism” (Eley 2013: 79), fascism carried grave danger for estab-
lishment sectors as well. Fascism’s uncontrollable leaders, who could
count on fervent, violence-prone mass support, jeopardized elite power
and privileges. Alliances with fascism were a pact with the devil
(Blinkhorn 1990; Payne 1995; Linz 2002).
To avoid these risks, most establishment sectors clearly preferred
conservative authoritarianism to fascist totalitarianism. As Chapter 1
explained, authoritarian rule rests on hierarchical, top-down control
and denies political influence to the masses (Linz 2000: 159–69). This
static regime type thus cements the preeminence of sociopolitical elites; it
forestalls and, if necessary, suppresses bottom-up challenges. In this way,
authoritarianism seeks to avert not only the revolutionary threat of com-
munism but also the radical push of fascism’s fervent mass movements.
Authoritarianism enshrines top-down rule, with the old elites on top.11
Therefore, the fascist project of giving a plebiscitarian leader total power
provoked a strong backlash among these establishment groupings.
During the interwar years, conservatives’ embrace of exclusionary
authoritarianism was therefore fed by a double deterrent effect. First,
the specter of communism stimulated severe doubts in democracy’s defen-
sive capacity and induced a strong preference for right-wing autocracy.
Second, this powerful counterrevolutionary reaction was divided on
which type of autocracy to install. Here, conservative elites also feared
fascist totalitarianism and advocated hierarchical, non-mobilizational
authoritarianism as a crucial safeguard not only against the radical left
but also the radical right. While they opportunistically cooperated with
fascist movements to fight the danger of communism, they then sought to
subject these violent hordes to their own domination. In particular, they
were determined not to fall under the indomitable sway of fascism’s
charismatic leaders. In sum, whereas left-wing radical Régis Debray
(1967), inspired by the Cuban Revolution, would later preach “revolu-
tion in the revolution,” conservative sectors during the interwar years
spearheaded a counterrevolution in the counterrevolution, combating the

11
On the crucial differences between conservative authoritarianism and fascist totalitarian-
ism, see also Luebbert (1991: 258–67, 273–77).
62 Theory: The Double Deterrent Effect

spread of communism while simultaneously trying to forestall the radical

reaction of fascism.
The double deterrent effect, which entailed ideological, political, and
sometimes armed conflicts among right-wing counterrevolutionaries,
deeply shaped autocratic proliferation during the 1920s and 1930s. As
conservative authoritarians and fascist totalitarians collaborated in all-
out attacks against the extreme and not-so-extreme left, they undermined
and overthrew liberal democracy in many countries. Yet the type of
autocracy instituted on these ruins depended on the power balance
between established elites and fascist mass movements, which in turn
reflected a society’s modernization level. Due to its remarkable blend of
modern and atavistic features, fascism benefited from sociopolitical mod-
ernization, which allowed for dynamic mass mobilization and the emer-
gence of large-scale fascist movements. By contrast, in more traditional,
“backward” countries (Janos 1982; Berend 1998: 22–32), conservative
elites sat firmly in the saddle and limited recruitment opportunities for
fascism, which therefore never reached uncontrollable strength.
Specifically, urbanization, industrialization, and the corresponding
erosion of clientelistic domination in the countryside weakened estab-
lished elites and facilitated the enlargement of fascist movements, as
Peukert (1993) demonstrated for Germany (see also Ziblatt 2017: chaps.
8–9; more broadly, see Luebbert 1991: 278–82). Similarly, fascism arose
in Italy’s more modern north, not the backward, elite-ruled Mezzogiorno.
By contrast, less developed, predominantly rural countries featured
stronger establishment sectors, hindering fascist mobilization among
popular groupings. Charismatic leaders, therefore, had fewer followers
and could not overpower the old elites. Instead, those advocates of
authoritarianism managed to subdue or repress fascist movements and
impose non-totalitarian dictatorships across Eastern and Southern
Europe (Luebbert 1991: 258–66; Payne 1995: chap. 5).
Consequently, whereas autocratic reverse waves usually have uniform
outcomes, such as anti-communist military rule in Latin America during
the 1960s and 1970s (Weyland 2019: chaps. 5–6), regime outcomes
differed substantially in the democratic recession of the interwar years.
The radical counterrevolution pursued by totalitarian fascism provoked a
fork in the road. Only Italy and Germany took the fascist route on their
own (Weyland 2017), before Nazi aggression helped spread fascism
during WWII. In most countries where democracy suffered overthrow,
conservative elites inflicted clear, if not brutal defeats on fascist move-
ments and installed authoritarianism (Payne 1995: 250, 274–76, 287–88,
 The Main Causal Mechanisms 63

312–16, 324; Oberländer 2001). Thus, the regressive regime cascade of

the 1920s and 1930s was predominantly authoritarian, not fascist. As
Bermeo (2003: 22) and Pasteur (2007: 7–9, 205–6) highlight, this fact is
underappreciated in extant scholarship, due to the world-historical sig-
nificance and destructive impact of fascism, especially National Socialism.
Thus, fascism provided high-energy fuel for the autocratic cascade –
but mainly through its deterrent effects. Radical right-wingers’ eagerness
to emulate Mussolini and Hitler, especially during the 1930s, prompted
forceful reactions from conservative elites. Where establishment sectors
clearly predominated, they used fascist movements as political instru-
ments to impose or harden authoritarian rule, yet then subjugated them
to these top-down dictatorships, as in Brazil (1937), Portugal (1930s),
and Spain (1936–39). Where fascist movements surged and seemed close
to seizing power, as in Austria (1933/34), Estonia (1933/34), and
Romania (1937/38), conservative elites spearheaded authoritarian coups
specifically to avert this risk. Interestingly, two of these instances of
“preventive Bonapartism” (Trotsky 1934) occurred soon after Hitler’s
Machtergreifung, which taught shocked conservatives across Europe that
an effort to tame a rising fascist movement through an apparently all-
powerful elite coalition could quickly fail and instead pave the way for a
violent totalitarian regime, as contemporary observers highlighted (e.g.,
Armstrong 1933: 589–93). Nazi Germany’s scary precedent thus boosted
a backlash that kept fascist movements elsewhere out of power and
blocked proliferation of this new regime model of radical
counterrevolution.
Interestingly, these authoritarian regimes had considerable political-
institutional solidity; in fact, those that managed to stay out of WWII,
namely the dictatorships of António Salazar in Portugal and Francisco
Franco in Spain, survived for decades after fascism’s downfall in 1945. By
contrast to this stability, which induced Linz (1964) to derive the concep-
tualization of a distinctive authoritarian regime type from the Spanish
case, fascism was inherently doomed (see recently Griffin 2018: 88–90).
With its feverish dynamism and urgent quest for violent expansion, this
novel regime type proved so (self-)destructive that it combusted almost as
quickly as it had arisen (Mosse 1966: 25–26).
Thus, the complex proliferation of right-wing dictatorships during the
interwar years clustered into three paths, namely fascist takeover, conser-
vative use of fascist auxiliaries for imposing authoritarian rule, and pre-
emptive coups to forestall fascist power seizures. These paths are depicted
in Table 2.1, which scores the cases listed in Table 1.1.
64 Theory: The Double Deterrent Effect

 . Pathways to reactionary autocracy during the interwar years

(in bold the three paths toward right-wing autocracy highlighted in this book;
in italics direct backlash against leftist radicalism)

1919 Hungary authoritarian backlash against communist revolution

1922 Italy fascist victory against leftist radicalism
1923 Bulgaria authoritarian backlash against agrarian radicalism
1923 Spain authoritarian backlash against leftist radicalism
1926 Poland reversal of democratic overstretch
1926 Lithuania fear of left-wing radicalization and precedent of Poland
1926 Portugal authoritarian response to endemic instability
1928 Albania authoritarian takeover in undemocratic society
1929 Yugoslavia authoritarian stabilization against ethnic tensions
1932 Portugal authoritarian usage of fascist auxiliaries
1933 Germany fascist victory against left and conservative right
1933 Austria preemptive self-coup against rising fascism
1934 Estonia preemptive self-coup against rising fascism
1934 Latvia preemptive self-coup against rising fascism and precedent
of Estonia
1934/ Bulgaria coup and self-coup driven partly by rising fascism
35
1936 Greece authoritarian response to endemic instability
1936/ Spain authoritarian usage of fascist auxiliaries in backlash
39 against leftist radicalism
1937 Brazil authoritarian usage of fascist auxiliaries
1938 Romania preemptive self-coup against rising fascism

In conclusion, the double deterrent effect deeply molded the interwar

reverse wave and drove its unusually broad scope and striking depth. As
many political forces, especially powerful establishment elites, found
themselves caught between the revolutionary threat of communism and
the radically counterrevolutionary threat of fascism, they often imposed
authoritarianism to navigate the treacherous course between Scylla and
Charybdis. Bolshevism’s rise and strong, persistent demonstration effects
caused a momentous backlash that undermined support for seemingly
weak, defenseless democracy. Yet this right-wing reaction pitted the
advocates of conservative authoritarianism against the fanatics of totali-
tarian fascism. With its enormous appeal, fascism provoked its own
deterrent effects, which induced conservative forces to use their resource
advantages to keep its plebiscitarian leaders out of power. Therefore, the
double deterrent effect brought the massive proliferation of hierarchical,
exclusionary authoritarianism.
 Micro-Foundations 65

-:  

 
The double deterrent effect rested on micro-foundations that helped turn
political struggles particularly fierce. Adding fuel to the tragedy of the
interwar years, political forces of all stripes did not act on the careful,
thorough, and balanced calculations of conventional rationality. Rather
than pursuing their interests with the best-possible, proportional means,
they relied on the simplifying mechanisms documented by cognitive
psychology. Innumerable experiments and field studies show that regular
people cannot live up to rational choice’s ideal-typical maxims. Instead,
they use the perceptual shortcuts and skewed choice mechanisms
imprinted in humans’ cognitive architecture (Simon 1955; Kahneman,
Slovic, and Tversky 1982; Kahneman and Tversky 2000; Gilovich,
Griffin, and Kahneman 2002). By avoiding the complicated, time-
consuming procedures of Bayesian updating and comprehensive prob-
ability estimation, these inferential tools facilitate decision-making in the
tremendous complexity of the real world.
These shortcuts and reflexive choice propensities come at a price,
however: the risk of distortions and mistakes. While often fairly close to
the mark – and therefore evolutionarily viable – these cognitive mechan-
isms can significantly deform perceptions and warp choices, especially in
the rarefied, fast-changing settings of modern politics. Whereas inferential
shortcuts worked quite well to inform the fight-or-flight reflexes of early
hominids, they face great difficulty in dealing with complex macro-
phenomena, such as predicting the effective risk of a communist revolu-
tion and determining the optimal means for forestalling this (mis?)per-
ceived threat.

Cognitive Shortcuts
As psychological studies demonstrate, human information processing
does not faithfully reflect objective reality. People commonly use inferen-
tial shortcuts to process overabundant, uncertain information and derive
quick, yet facile, conclusions (Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky 1982;
Gilovich, Griffin, and Kahneman 2002; Kahneman 2011). Two cognitive
mechanisms that are especially relevant for political decision-making are
the heuristics of availability and representativeness, as social scientists
have documented (Kuran and Sunstein 1999; McDermott 2004: 57–69;
Levy 2013: 310–12, 316–17; Weyland 2014, 2019; Vis 2019).
66 Theory: The Double Deterrent Effect

The availability heuristic shapes people’s attention and memory recall

by attaching disproportionate weight to dramatic, vivid events, compared
to less striking occurrences that hold equal, if not greater, objective
relevance. The prototypical example is that people who witness a car
crash tend to slow down immediately. In this way, they illogically let
one striking occurrence reshape their assessment of the advantages and
risks of speeding, which – from a rational perspective – should reflect all
their prior experiences and be virtually unaffected by a single new data
point. In line with this inferential shortcut, US debate over gun control
peaks right after a mass shooting, although almost every day, larger
numbers of Americans fall victim to murders committed with firearms;
however, this quotidian bloodletting has become so normal as to draw
little attention. Distortions caused by the availability heuristic can have
substantial repercussions for people’s lives. After the terrorist attacks of 9/
11, many Americans feared plane rides and switched to car travel instead –
but driving is much more dangerous than flying. As a result, scholars
estimate that about 1,500 additional people died, the tragic product of a
basic cognitive shortcut (Gigerenzer 2006).
As the availability heuristic distorts information intake, the representa-
tiveness heuristic suggests problematic inferences by inducing people to
overestimate similarities and discount underlying differences, for instance
by neglecting statistical base rates. For instance, people draw excessively
firm conclusions from small samples, failing to understand the role of
chance factors. By improperly fixating on superficial similarities, they
estimate the likelihood that 60 out of 100 births will yield boys as similar
to that of 600 males out of 1,000 births: After all, the proportion is the
same! But, of course, the latter result is much less probable, given the
larger sample. People see the similar percentage yet overlook the crucial
difference in the statistical base (Kahneman and Tversky 1982: 38–46).
This overestimation of similarities makes people jump to conclusions
about the applicability and relevance of foreign events. They easily believe
that an unexpected development in a neighboring country may well recur
at home. Impressed by the external precedent, they see excessively strong
and close parallels across borders and tend to neglect relevant differences.
These distorted beliefs helped induce millions of people across the Arab
world to protest after the eviction of Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine
Ben Ali in early 2011, hoping to oust their own autocrats as well
(Weyland 2012). Immediately after Ben Ali’s downfall, people in Cairo,
for instance, rashly inferred they could achieve the same feat (tweets
reprinted in Idle and Nunns 2011: 27–28) and force democratization as
 Micro-Foundations 67

well. But these ill-founded expectations suggested by the representative-

ness heuristic were soon dashed by the re-imposition of a fiercer tyranny
in Egypt, and the explosion of civil wars in Libya, Syria, and Yemen. The
initially widespread hopes of following Tunisia into democracy remained
unfulfilled and instead helped provoke the unintended consequence of
political deterioration in several countries. Cognitive deviations from
standard rationality ended up having substantial political repercussions
and grave human costs.
In sum, the shortcuts of availability and representativeness shape and
potentially deform information processing in the complex, fluid world of
politics. They hold special sway during unexpected, shocking transform-
ations, when regular political parameters are upended and new high-
stakes options suddenly open up, as in the case of the Russian
Revolution. During such major upheaval, actors find it exceedingly diffi-
cult to conduct standard rational calculations; they may not even manage
to specify their own interests, not to speak of determining the best ways
and means of pursuing them. Whereas rational choice has most purchase
in stable settings and predictable situations (Tsebelis 1990: 32–38), cog-
nitive distortions and reflexive choice mechanisms are particularly crucial
and impactful in times of profound trouble and turmoil, when uncertainty
is extreme and utter “confusion” (Kurzman 2004: 333–39) often prevails.

Disproportionate Loss Aversion

Cognitive shortcuts have an especially profound impact on decision-
making when they activate people’s disproportionate aversion to losses.
Contrary to the rational-choice assumption that benefits and costs carry
the same weight, humans weigh losses much more heavily than gains. In a
classical experiment, people who were asked to sell – and thus lose – a
commemorative mug charged approximately twice the price that those
who were instructed to buy – and thus gain – this mug were willing to
offer (Thaler 1992: 64–66; Kahneman 2011: 295–97). The lopsided
importance of costs means that losses are not compensated by gains of
objectively equal magnitude. Judged from a rational perspective, people
worry excessively about costs. Therefore, they undertake much greater
efforts to avoid losses than to achieve gains. Their curve of subjective
utility has a significant skew: It is much steeper in the domain of losses
than the domain of gains (Kahneman and Tversky 2000: 3; Kahneman
2011: 283). This fundamental asymmetry prompts great, even fierce,
68 Theory: The Double Deterrent Effect

determination to defend the status quo against deterioration, while giving

the quest for improvements less impetus.
People’s loss aversion shapes political decision-making and action,
especially on high-stakes issues concerning the redistribution of resources
or reallocation of power. Whenever clear, visible gains and losses are
involved, a profound asymmetry appears: Potential losers fight with much
greater energy to forestall this negative prospect than winners mobilize for
pursuing their hopes. To defend what they regard as their well-deserved
endowments and acquired rights (Thaler 1992: chap. 6), people make all-
out efforts to block threatening changes. Consequently, the proponents of
a transformation, especially a revolutionary overhaul, face a steep uphill
battle, confronting a phalanx of determined status-quo defenders.
Challenges by left-wing radicals prompt a strong conservative reaction
and forceful backlash. As the perceptual distortions arising from cognitive
shortcuts activate asymmetrical loss aversion, political choices and aggre-
gate outcomes deviate substantially from conventional rational-choice
predictions.

Cognitive Micro-mechanisms and Organizational Macro-structures

Because politics involves collective action and aggregate decisions, cogni-
tive mechanisms, which operate at the individual level, are in the political
world mediated by organizational structures. Indeed, the literature on
bounded rationality has long emphasized that well-designed organiza-
tions can compensate for deficits and problems caused by individuals’
deviations from standard rationality (Simon 1976; March and Simon
1993; Bendor 2010). With their division of labor and specialization,
organizations rely on expertise, foment the accumulation of experience,
and can improve their performance over time by learning from trial and
error (see recently Saunders 2017). Moreover, by encompassing a variety
of perspectives and orientations, organizations tend to foster discussion
and deliberation, which can filter out problematic inferences and reduce
distortions. Therefore, properly constructed organizations better approxi-
mate the norms of thorough information processing and rational
decision-making than individuals.
These benefits, however, depend on organizations’ specific features.
They appear where recruitment is meritocratic and top officials value
competence and performance over personal loyalty or ideological fervor.
Moreover, they tend to prevail in organizations that include a plurality of
viewpoints, rather than promoting homogeneity and conformity. Results
 Micro-Foundations 69

are better where leaders do not insist on simple obedience, but encourage
constructive suggestions and even accept critical feedback.
Whereas stiff competition induces business enterprises in a well-
functioning market to prize efficiency and approximate standard ration-
ality, political organizations are more likely to run up against the bounds
of rationality. After all, political groupings pursue diverse short- and
long-term goals, thus lacking clear yardsticks for performance assess-
ments. Moreover, the “opacity” of the complex political world (Pierson
2000: 259–62) also hinders the construction of rationality-enhancing
procedures and mechanisms and makes learning by trial and error diffi-
cult. For these reasons, political organizations differ enormously in
internal structure. Some achieve a good understanding of the prevailing
political constellation and navigate opportunities and constraints with
considerable skill. But other groupings have a tenuous grasp on political
reality and spearhead initiatives that have minimal chances of success.
Specifically, broad-based parties, such as the massive formations of
Social and Christian Democracy, incorporate a diversity of orientations.
This pluralism facilitates the vetting of inferences suggested by cognitive
heuristics and allows for debates about the wisdom of acting in the
asymmetrical fashion arising from loss aversion (see, e.g., Goldinger
1980). The more these organizations employ democratic rules of internal
decision-making, the better they are able to filter out some of the distor-
tions created by cognitive mechanisms. They tame their members’ pro-
pensity to jump to conclusions and prevent choices that are clearly
unpromising and imprudent. Usually, therefore, broad-based parties
refrain from initiating challenges that are not attuned to the prevailing
balance of power. While still unable to live up to the ideal-typical maxims
of rational choice, especially during times of political turbulence and
heightened uncertainty, such pluralistic, “open” organizations diminish
the deviations from optimal standards and thus achieve less tightly
bounded rationality.
By contrast, narrow groupings, especially ideological sects (Traverso
2016: 204–5),12 privilege unity and forgo the benefits of open debate.
Because internal critics suffer denunciation as enemies and dissenters are
purged, the distortions resulting from cognitive shortcuts tend to reign
supreme. Due to conformity pressures, the inferences derived via the

12
For instance, Eliade (1988: 69), an intellectual who for years was close to Romania’s
fascist Legion of the Archangel Michael, highlights that it “had the structure and vocation
of a mystical sect.”
70 Theory: The Double Deterrent Effect

availability and representativeness heuristics are not double-checked.

Homogeneity can breed “groupthink,” the mutual reinforcement of sug-
gestive views, however problematic they are (Esser 1998; McDermott
2004: 249–55; Schafer and Crichlow 2010). This hothouse atmosphere
exacerbates deviations from rationality and breeds political initiatives
that are unlikely to achieve their often overambitious goals.
Firm hierarchy also has deleterious repercussions. Inside the military,
for instance, subordinates execute orders and refrain from questioning
their generals’ perceptions, viewpoints, and choices. Strong esprit de
corps discourages the airing of disagreements. The intense effort to forge
cohesion and thus guarantee an effective fighting force silences diversity.
Problematic inferences held by the top leadership can therefore flourish
inside the military. Accordingly, most militaries during the interwar years
acted out of a strong overestimation of the communist threat. Loss
aversion then induced officers and soldiers to crack down hard against
left-wing radicals and spearhead the imposition of autocracy as a safe-
guard against revolutionary risks.
In sum, organizational structures can mitigate the problems and dis-
tortions that cognitive shortcuts and asymmetrical loss aversion cause at
the individual level. Pluralistic, internally democratic parties are especially
well-positioned to achieve these improvements. By contrast, organizations
that privilege unity of purpose and top-down command over diversity and
debate tend to miss these benefits. Homogeneity-seeking groupings at the
ideological poles and the hierarchical military stand out in this respect.
Due to their determination or their power capabilities, these not-very-
rational actors can seriously affect political life, by drastically challenging
the established order in pursuit of their millenarian goals, or by protecting
this order with excessive repression. Despite the efforts of broad-based
parties to act with prudence, these problematic actors turned the interwar
years into an inferno of life-and-death struggles in which liberal democ-
racy frequently perished.

Cognitive Mechanisms and the Political Turbulence

of the Interwar Years
Inferential heuristics and asymmetrical loss aversion are crucial for under-
standing the massive reverse wave and its disproportionate violence.
Cognitive shortcuts help explain why both the radical left and the radical
right initiated ill-considered replication efforts that had exceedingly low
chances of success and provoked costly countermeasures. Left-wing
 Micro-Foundations 71

attempts to emulate the Bolshevik revolution uniformly failed and

prompted fierce backlashes by a broad range of status-quo defenders.
Driven by loss aversion, the enemies of Lenin’s disciples employed exorbi-
tant force and unnecessary brutality (Read 2008: 45, 71, 75–78, 122–23,
151). Moreover, while deep fear of communism contributed to the emer-
gence of fascism, the threat to elite interests posed by charismatic leaders
and their violent mass movements caused a backlash as well. Loss aver-
sion induced establishment forces to control, combat, and subjugate the
fascists and impose authoritarianism as protection not only against left-
wing radicals but also right-wing radicals.
Cognitive mechanisms held tremendous sway because the Russian
Revolution sent shockwaves around the globe. By shattering the estab-
lished coordinates of politics and unleashing unprecedented ideological
battles, the Bolshevist power grab suddenly devalued the accumulated
stock of political experiences and disrupted rational information process-
ing and systematic probability assessments. The earthquake radiating out
from Petrograd caused profound uncertainty. In this confusion (cf.
Kurzman 2004), with rumors running wild,13 people grasped at the
straws of inferential shortcuts, which thoroughly shaped their judgments.
Lenin’s striking success drew enormous attention via the availability
heuristic and inspired expectations of similar events in many other coun-
tries, in line with the representativeness heuristic. Interestingly, these
expectations of replication affected political actors across the ideological
divide, thus demonstrating their roots in cognitive shortcuts; they resulted
neither from wishful thinking by aspiring revolutionaries nor from stra-
tegic fearmongering by scheming reactionaries. Instead, all groupings
shared the prediction of revolution’s likely spread, despite the ideological
hostilities dividing them.
The inferences drawn via cognitive shortcuts inspired radical left-
wingers to imitate the striking Soviet precedent; consequently, they rashly
spearheaded uprisings in a wide range of countries. These indiscriminate
challenges struck enormous fear into their conservative adversaries, who
relied on inferential heuristics as well. As these shortcuts activated asym-
metrical loss aversion, status-quo defenders mobilized all their resources
to crush extreme-left emulation efforts. Thus, what revolutionaries saw as
promising substantial gains, their adversaries dreaded as threatening
equivalent costs. Yet because losses weigh much more heavily, this scary

13
On the role of unverifiable rumors, see recently Jones (2016: 31, 43, 55, 63–64, 96–97,
180–83, 188–89, 266, 331).
72 Theory: The Double Deterrent Effect

prospect motivated all-out attempts to combat the radical left. Due to this
fundamental asymmetry, relatively few people supported revolutionary
initiatives, whereas a wide range of forces fought back, employing all
means at their disposal. The skewed valuation of gains versus losses thus
prompted the backlash propelling the interwar wave of autocracy. This
cognitive mechanism helps explain why counterrevolutionaries blocked
all left-wing efforts to imitate the Russian Revolution; and why they
resorted to brutality, inflicting grievous suffering on many
revolutionaries.
Cognitive shortcuts and loss aversion also elucidate the subsequent
conflicts and struggles among left-wingers’ enemies, which pitted conser-
vative elites against fascist movements. While useful as street fighters
against Bolsheviks and other radicals, Mussolini’s and Hitler’s disciples
posed their own threats to elite interests by pushing for an overhaul of
power relations through the installation of totalitarianism. Therefore, loss
aversion induced conservative sectors to be wary of fascists as well.
Threat perceptions became particularly acute after Hitler seized power,
immediately shook off the supposed stranglehold of establishment forces,
and resolutely marched to full-scale dictatorship (Traverso 2016:
259–60). As Germany’s fascist genie so easily escaped from the bottle,
conservative elites across Europe and beyond came to fear replications, as
suggested by the availability and representativeness heuristics. Due to loss
aversion, therefore, they preemptively imposed authoritarianism in sev-
eral countries to forestall the overrated risk of fascist power grabs.
Thus, cognitive mechanisms also fueled the second deterrent effect
highlighted in this study, namely conservative elites’ efforts to prevent
emulative power seizures by fascist upstarts inspired by Mussolini and
Hitler. As inferential shortcuts led to overestimations of the radical-left
threat and as loss aversion motivated drastic countermeasures, these
mechanisms similarly guided conservatives’ reactions to the radical right.
With these two-front struggles, establishment elites shaped political
regime developments during the interwar years. The principal victim
was liberal democracy, so often trampled to death by the combat boots
of these contending forces. Because liberal pluralism seemed to allow for
communist agitation and fascist mobilization, scared elites closed down
electoral politics and discarded political freedom to safeguard their inter-
ests and predominance.
In conclusion, fundamental mechanisms of cognitive psychology pro-
vide solid micro-foundations for the double deterrent effect that drove
autocracy’s proliferation during the 1920s and 1930s. In an era of
 Conclusion 73

unusual uncertainty, inferential shortcuts made actors overestimate the

ease of profound transformations, instilling excessive hopes among chal-
lengers, while causing deep fear among status-quo defenders. As challen-
gers disregarded prudence and pushed hard for drastic change, their
opponents resisted with full force. Because loss aversion induced conser-
vative forces to combat their enemies on the radical left as well as the
radical right, communist revolution uniformly failed, and the fascist quest
for power was mostly unsuccessful as well. Due to these struggles, how-
ever, in many countries democracy broke down, and was forcibly
replaced by authoritarian rule.


This chapter has highlighted the double deterrent effect as the main
moving cause of the interwar reverse wave. The shocking Russian
Revolution and the USSR’s world-revolutionary ambitions instilled dread
among status-quo defenders and inspired a powerful backlash. As defense
against communist subversion became an overriding priority, right-
wingers gained strength and boldness. Because democracy’s openness
and tolerance looked weak, established elites and many citizens sought
to fortify political authority by dismantling liberal safeguards and install-
ing autocracy. Perceptions of radical-left threat thus turned people against
democracy and drove them toward conservative authoritarians or fascist
totalitarians.
Yet conflict arose over what type of autocracy to impose. Established
elites preferred authoritarian rule, whereas new fascist movements fought
hard for totalitarian despotism. These tensions prompted a second deter-
rent effect: Concerns about fascism’s risks induced conservative power-
holders to tame or repress radical-right leaders and their fanatical
followers. Shocked by Hitler’s Machtergreifung, established elites spear-
headed preemptive coups where extreme-right movements seemed about
to take power. And where conservative sectors clearly dominated, they
used fascist help to destroy democracy and impose authoritarianism,
subjugating their erstwhile allies thereafter. In many countries, liberal
pluralism did not survive the struggles pitting conservative elites against
both ideological extremes.
The double deterrent effect had particularly tragic consequences
because the underlying threat perceptions were exaggerated and this
dread then provoked disproportionate reactions. Because cognitive short-
cuts distorted information processing and loss aversion deformed choices,
74 Theory: The Double Deterrent Effect

deviations from political rationality abounded. Rather than assessing

radical activities with careful intelligence and responding with well-
calibrated countermeasures, status-quo defenders overrated the danger
and combated it with excessive force; and as they abandoned political
liberalism, they submitted to the arbitrary, unaccountable authority of
dictators.
Structural weaknesses and conjunctural crises made democracies in
Eastern, Southern, and Central Europe especially vulnerable to the dele-
terious repercussions of the double deterrent effect. WWI left behind
legacies of violence, nationalist resentment, and ethnic conflict, with
which new democracies with their sometimes dysfunctional institutions
had difficulty coping. Hyperinflation and the Great Depression added to
this unusual problem load. Countries in Europe’s North and West, by
contrast, avoided many of these problems. Moreover, advanced modern-
ization and longer experience gave their democracies resilience against
radical-left and radical-right threats. Spared the ravages of the double
deterrent effect, these nations survived the autocratic riptide.
 3

The Soviet Precedent and the Wave of Isomorphic

Emulation Efforts

While prepared by years of carnage in WWI, the “age of extremes” was

ushered in by the Russian Revolutions of 1917: the Tsar’s downfall in
February and especially Lenin’s power seizure in October. Both these
striking events, particularly the Bolshevist takeover, immediately drew
enormous attention across the world. Their political repercussions deeply
shaped interwar politics and unleashed the conflicts and reactions that
propelled the autocratic riptide. As communism turned from a theoretical
utopia into a concrete regime option, left-wingers in many countries felt
inspired to emulate this new model through armed assaults on power.
Predictably, these isomorphic imitation efforts provoked massive repres-
sion by status-quo defenders, which Chapter 4 analyzes. Yet despite their
initial defeats, communists kept promoting world revolution throughout
the 1920s and 1930s. Because in many countries democracy seemed too
weak and unable to cope with this threat, scared conservatives advocated
the polity’s fortification through dictatorial means. The perceived danger
of Bolshevism thus discredited democracy, drove citizens to support right-
wingers, and directly or indirectly contributed to autocracy’s imposition
across Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe, as Chapters 5–8 show.
Thus, the Russian Revolution triggered the interwar reverse wave. As
Chapter 1 mentioned, many scholars highlight the crucial impulse that the
specter of communism gave to the rise and appeal of fascism and authori-
tarianism. This chapter examines the immediate impact of the Bolshevist
power grab in stimulating a rash of precipitous emulation attempts. The
underlying assumption that Lenin’s success was widely replicable, which
prompted these ill-planned uprisings, reflects the cognitive shortcuts of
my bounded rationality approach. While the availability heuristic

75
76 The Soviet Precedent and Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

suggested the tremendous importance of Russia’s stunning precedent, the

representativeness heuristic induced left-wingers elsewhere to overrate the
similarities to the political situation in their own country. These cognitive
shortcuts thus boosted assessments of revolution’s feasibility, inducing
radicals to make a headlong rush to imitation.
The following analysis documents these misguided judgments and their
political consequences. The immediate tsunami of emulation efforts
stimulated by the Bolshevist takeover brought contentious stirrings across
a wide range of countries, uprisings in several nations, and temporary
power grabs in a few places, such as Hungary and Bavaria (see recently
Priestland 2016: 88–89). Consequently, the years from 1919 to 1923 saw
enormous sociopolitical turbulence, especially in Central, Eastern, and
Southern Europe. Predictably, however, these extremist initiatives acti-
vated status-quo defenders’ loss aversion and therefore drew quick, force-
ful countermeasures, which uniformly defeated the radical left, as
Chapter 4 will analyze.

     

   
Russia’s October Revolution, in which Lenin’s Bolshevists resolutely
captured power, was a dramatic event that triggered the heuristics of
availability and representativeness. Observers of all stripes, across
Europe and the whole world, were immediately impressed. The over-
throw of the Tsarist autocracy in February 1917 stimulated widespread
enthusiasm among leftist and centrist forces, and the October Revolution
had an even more profound, though polarizing, effect, firing up the left
while scaring the right (Hobsbawm 1996: 65–69).1
The “never-imagined ease and speed” with which the Tsarist regime
fell in February (Runkel 1919: 45) and with which the Bolshevists seized
power in October induced people in many other countries to jump to the
conclusion that their own regimes were also highly vulnerable: Why not
challenge them right away? As historian Paul Dukes (1979: 133; also
111–32, 152–68) concludes, “there was no substantial part of the
inhabited world completely unaffected by the immediate impact of the

1
For Italy, e.g., see Procacci (1968: 157–66); for the Italian Socialist Party, Lindemann
(1974: 53–63); Ravindranathan (1989: 17, 22, 26–27); for Mexico, Spenser (2009).
Stewart (1946: 223–26) examines contentious efforts stimulated by the Russian
Revolution in England and Canada.
 Cognitive Heuristics and the Russian Revolution 77

Russian Revolution.” In Romania, for instance, “the news of the

February Revolution provoked a flurry of excitement among socialist
groups” (Karchmar 1983: 142). Even faraway “Lisbon came to be con-
vinced [in late 1917] that it was about to be the theater of the downfall of
the whole social organization and that a Soviet regime would succeed the
decrepit machine that had been functioning for so many centuries.” As a
contemporary newspaper reported, “Lisbon looked to strangers like a
Petrograd,” where Lenin had just seized power (Duarte 1941: 52–53).
The impact on Germany, the country widely seen as most susceptible
to revolutionary contagion, was especially momentous. Due to the
Russian events, “the revolutionary idea was strengthened to such an
extent that it explosively attained a breakthrough,” a moderate eyewit-
ness stressed (Runkel 1919: 45). The stunning revolutionary precedents
drew enormous interest, especially from social-democrats and socialists
(Müller 1924: 79, 96; Spartakus 1958: 302–5; Liebknecht 1974: 358,
589, 679). “The news from Russia was followed very attentively” (Müller
1924: 79), one of Germany’s leading Revolutionary Shop Stewards, a far-
left grouping, emphasized.2
The unlikely success of an armed minority of communists in taking
power in October 1917, in maintaining control against all odds, and in
quickly imposing a host of fundamental changes had particularly power-
ful repercussions and provoked a stark polarization of political opinion
(Eley 2002: 121, 124, 138, 220–29; Daly and Trofimov 2017: 47–64).
On the one hand, far-left groupings in many other countries, such as
Romania (Karchmar 1983: 141–46), celebrated these feats and reflexively
inferred they could be replicated at home. Therefore, these radicals
undertook a wave of precipitous imitation efforts. On the other hand,
ample right-wing and centrist sectors, who also regarded the Bolshevist
triumph as an indication of the established order’s brittleness, were deter-
mined to forestall any replication of Lenin’s takeover (Merz 1995: chaps.
12–18; Wirsching 2007: 147–56). Therefore they combated far-left stir-
rings with all means, including disproportionate force. This overshooting
reflected the tremendous fear that the Bolshevist Revolution and the
widespread, ill-considered emulation attempts evoked.

2
For some left-wing radicals, the Russian Revolution’s impact went beyond politics. As the
widow of communist Eugen Leviné, a leader of the Bavarian soviet republic of April 1919,
reports, “The breath of the Russian revolution had an immediate effect on our personal
life. It opened new perspectives and magically swept away our squabbles” (Leviné-Meyer
1973: 41).
78 The Soviet Precedent and Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

Most fundamentally, the shock of the Russian Revolution created

profound uncertainty, which pervaded political thinking during the inter-
war years (Vincent 2016: 388–89, 394; in general Kurzman 2004).
Lenin’s surprising success shattered the widespread assumptions about
the solidity of the existing sociopolitical system that had taken root across
the world after the forceful suppression of the revolutionary upheavals of
1848 and the Paris Commune of 1871. While the radical left now saw
unexpected confirmation of its utopian hopes, ample sectors ranging from
the right to the moderate, social-democratic left were suddenly shaken out
of their sense of normality. As the longstanding coordinates of the polit-
ical world seemed to collapse and totally new possibilities opened up,
even experienced leaders lost the ground under their feet, and impression-
able youngsters got carried away, in different ideological directions. To
cope with this deep uncertainty and trace a path in the resulting confu-
sion, people applied the cognitive shortcuts of bounded rationality.
Reliance on inferential heuristics was especially pronounced because
people across Europe lacked reliable information about the complicated,
fluid developments in Russia; even leftist sympathizers had little in-depth
knowledge (Bassler 1973: 256, 260; Müller 2010: 160; see also Kautsky
[1918] 1981: 73–74; Dittmann 1995: 757–58). “The news about the new
Russia arrived in a rather meager fashion” (Müller 1924: 96), a left-wing
socialist admitted. Mainstream Social Democrats complained that the
available reports about Lenin’s activities were deficient, even outright
false (Scheidemann 1921: 153–54). The Russian civil war hindered sys-
tematic reporting, and the stark disagreements about the communist
experiment undermined the objectivity of the sparse news that did arrive
in the West (Zarusky 1992: 86–90). Direct links between the leading
Bolsheviks and radicals elsewhere were confined to a few people, often
operators of questionable trustworthiness.
Typical for the world of bounded rationality, this prevailing lack of
clarity gave inferential heuristics free reign. The Russian Revolution
therefore had a tremendous impact on people’s thinking. Due to the
availability heuristic, these unexpected events profoundly shaped percep-
tions and judgments. Political leaders across the ideological spectrum
were riveted, and even common people, such as a patriotic German sailor
who left behind an extensive diary, eagerly tried to follow the unfolding
Russian Revolution (Stumpf 1967: 306–11). These striking developments
helped to “alter . . . the psychology of the people,” a leading German
Social Democrat observed (Scheidemann 1929, vol. 1: 342). As an
American reported from Petrograd, “I am filled with great surges of
 Cognitive Heuristics and the Russian Revolution 79

feeling over all it means to the world and the progress of human liberty –
this century advance that has been made in a few days” (reprinted in Daly
and Trofimov 2017: 78). In similar terms, a left-wing socialist in Germany
saw the Russian February Revolution “as tremendous progress on the
path toward liberty for Russia and the world” (Haase 1929: 141; see also
42–43). And a Revolutionary Shop Steward claimed that, “when the
revolution and the overthrow of the Czar was reported from Russia, the
workers gained new hope” (Müller 1924: 79).
The representativeness heuristic also molded people’s inferences,
making them overestimate the similarities between the Russian precedent
and their home countries. Because the Bolshevists had quickly managed to
take power and overturn the socioeconomic order, a wide range of
observers came to believe that the sociopolitical systems of their own
countries were also brittle and that replication efforts had good chances
of success. Even conservatives in Germany, for instance, marveled at the
“success” of the Russian Communists – and feared its repetition
(Wirsching 2007: 147–56). Left-wingers, in turn, jumped to the conclu-
sion that they could successfully challenge their authorities as well
(Morgan 1982: 307–8; Eley 2002: 152). A leader of Germany’s
Revolutionary Shop Stewards reported:
The toppling of tsarist rule in March 1917 gave the revolutionary movement in
Germany a concrete goal . . . When on 8 November 1917 the German press
reported the overthrow of the Kerensky government, the victory of the
Bolshevists, and the victorious revolution of workers, soldiers, and peasants, there
was no longer any doubt in the circles of oppositional workers about what was
possible and necessary in Germany, and the reports of the German press about the
Russian Revolution . . . demonstrated the path and the instruments for the goal.
Certainly conditions in Russia differed from Germany, but what the Russian
peasant managed to accomplish should be even more feasible for the German
industrial worker with his socialist training and organization!
(Müller 1924: 96; similar statements cited in Broué 2006: 90–98; see also
Plättner [1919] 2012: 164)

A socialist politician in Germany saw the “breakdown of the Tsarist

regime” as momentous; in his view, “its immediate psychological impact
on the mood of the German working class was enormous” (Dittmann
1995: 503). A former left-wing extremist remembers that “[t]he Russian
Revolution seemed to confirm all my [radical] ideas and expectations and
stimulated my drive toward activity” (Geyer 1976: 57). In his perception,
“[t]he events in Russia were a powerful stimulus for the revolutionary
illusions on the left of the German labor movement” (Geyer 1976: 62; see
80 The Soviet Precedent and Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

also 63–64, 95). A communist agreed: “In Germany, since the February
Revolution of 1917 all who had preserved some of the old [=radical
leftist] ideals and goals had begun to become active” (Pieck 1959: 365).
The proto-communist Spartakus Group rejoiced that “the revolution in
Russia won out so quickly within a few days,” extolled this “great
historical drama,” and derived a suggestive question: “Russia frees itself.
Who will free Germany. . .?” (Spartakus 1958: 302, 304, 305). Spartakus
leader Karl Liebknecht (1974: 358) also stressed the “tremendous import-
ance of the domestic political repercussions/the internal changes in Russia
on the other countries/the fact that Russia is no longer tsarist, for the
internal political situation in all other European countries as well, espe-
cially Germany.”
Thus, the representativeness heuristic induced people from diverse,
even opposite, ideological camps to overrate the similarities between the
Russian precedent and the political situation elsewhere. As regards
Germany, radical leftists, such as Spartakus’ Liebknecht, quickly inferred
that their nation was next in line in the unfolding world revolution
(Liebknecht 1974: 358, 589, 643, 646, 662, 677–79, 681). “Under the
magical spell of the Bolsheviks’ ascent to power only a year earlier”
(McAdams 2017: 113), the newly formed Communist Party proclaimed
in early 1919: “Germany will be the council republic of the working
people, which . . . will be a shining example for the workers of other
countries, which together with the council republic of the Russian
workers will call the workers of England, France, Italy under the banner
of revolution” (leaflet reproduced in Müller 1926: 221). A radical left-
winger argued along similar lines: “The council idea and the council
system in its practical form have been brought to us from Russia . . .
This, in fact, made it rather easy to introduce it in Germany because
practical examples are always compelling . . . Therefore, in comparison
to Russia, it should be child’s play [my emphasis] to lead the revolution to
victory in Germany because we do not have to engage in all sorts of
experiments” (Plättner [1919] 2012: 164).
Right-wingers, centrists, and even mainstream Social Democrats, such
as moderate SPD leader Philipp Scheidemann (1929, vol. 2: 225, 243–46,
262–63, 279–84, 291–93), also believed in the easy replicability of the
Bolshevist takeover, but of course they feared this very outcome – with an
intensity that left socialist Wilhelm Dittmann (1995: 564) calls “almost
pathological.” By the end of 1918, in Scheidemann’s (1929, vol. 2: 291)
perception, “the tide of Bolshevism rose higher and higher throughout the
Empire.” Accordingly, Scheidemann (1929, vol. 2: 293) claimed that
 Cognitive Heuristics and the Russian Revolution 81

without the SPD’s determined efforts to combat the radicals, “the

Bolshevist wave would have swept away all the barriers we had con-
structed with such trouble to ensure the life of the democratic Republic”
(Scheidemann 1929, vol. 2: 284). Thus, like their communist enemies, the
representativeness heuristic made status-quo defenders and reformists see
the chances of revolution as high. As McAdams (2017: 113) comments,
they “mistakenly interpret[ed]” radical stirrings as “signs of an imminent
social explosion on the scale of Russia’s October Revolution.”
Interestingly, these expectations of imminent revolution fueled by cog-
nitive shortcuts prevailed not only in the Soviet Union’s European neigh-
borhood, but also on the other side of the globe. In several South
American countries, left-wing and labor unrest erupted in 1918/19
(Deutsch 1999: 61–63, 67, 80–82, 111; see also Dukes 1979: 166–67;
Albert 1988: 237, 249). In Brazil, for instance, the Russian Revolution
had “a strong catalyzing effect.” Indeed, “the first news of the takeover of
power by the Bolsheviks offered a renewed stimulus to the labor move-
ment to . . . retake the offensive.” Specifically, “the news that arrived were
motive of jubilation and stimulus to achieve the same goal and ‘to do
things like in Russia.’” Accordingly, in early 1919, “the main leaders of
the working class in the country’s capital [Rio de Janeiro] . . . resolved to
try an assault on power” (Roio 2007: 63, 65, 67, respectively; see also
Albert 1988: 266–70). At the other extreme of the ideological spectrum,
among conservatives in Argentina, “[w]hat was new in 1919 was the
growing obsession . . . with the surreptitious hordes of Bolsheviks, with
the Red Flag, and with the idea, which sprang from Russia’s fate in 1917,
that in democracy lay the seeds of revolutionary anarchy” (Rock 1993:
64–65). Thus, even west of the Atlantic and south of the Equator, the
availability and representativeness heuristics led a variety of political
observers to attribute disproportionate importance to Lenin’s precedent
and to infer the easy replicability of communist revolution.
As the belief in communism’s good chances of proliferation was shared
by political enemies at opposite poles of the ideological divide, it clearly
resulted from heuristic shortcuts, not from wishful thinking by the left or
strategic fear-mongering by the right. Observers of all stripes converged
on “a sense that revolution was spreading like a contagion” (Fayet 2014:
109). The commonality of this perception reflected people’s cognitive
architecture; it cannot have arisen from their interests, which differed
starkly. Of course, these antagonistic interests then drove the divergent
decisions and actions that these widespread perceptions inspired different
political forces to undertake. The inferences derived from the Russian
82 The Soviet Precedent and Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

Revolution via the representativeness heuristic induced left-wing extrem-

ists to initiate a rash of daring emulation efforts, whereas right-wingers,
centrists, and even moderate left-wingers pursued the diametrically
opposite goal, namely to forestall and combat violent revolution (Daly
and Trofimov 2017: 52–55). Thus, both sides of the ideological divide
diverged from conventional rationality because they were swept up by the
impulses unleashed by Lenin’s success; however, leftist efforts at diffusion
prompted rightist counter-diffusion, bringing a series of violent clashes.3

-     – 

  
Due to the inferences derived via cognitive shortcuts, the Russian
Revolution unleashed a quick wave of isomorphic imitation efforts (see
recently Gerwarth 2016: 118–59). As Lenin’s Communists had achieved
striking success with an armed attack on the government, their ideological
brethren in a wide range of countries employed the same strategy, hoping
to replicate this feat. After 1917, there was “revolution in the air!”
Accordingly, radical leftists used the slightest opening to initiate a revolu-
tionary assault on governments, as in Berlin and Bremen in January 1919,
Budapest and Berlin again in March, and Munich in April (Fayet 2014:
115–18), with an abortive effort even in faraway Rio de Janeiro (Roio
2007: 67–68). Because Lenin’s triumph made the chances of success
appear so high, the first round of assaults in early 1919 was spontaneous,
ill-considered, and lacking organizational preparation.
These precipitous emulation attempts originated from radical fringe
groupings, distant from the broad-based organizations of Social
Democracy. In Berlin, for instance, a haphazard, heterogeneous assem-
blage of militants of the recently founded Communist Party,
Revolutionary Shop Stewards, and Spartakists took the lead; the
Spartakus League itself was a loose grouping (Waldman 1967: 136;
Luban 2017: 47–48, 51) that drew its very limited support primarily
from the unorganized underclass (Lindemann 1974: 41–44; Mommsen
2016: 39). In the chaotic, almost tragicomic offensive by left-wingers in

3
In his comprehensive analysis of the “German revolution,” Kluge (1985: 93–94) highlights
these distortions by accusing radical leftists of an “illusionary infatuation with grabbing
power” while criticizing mainstream Social Democracy for its “irrational” reliance on
repressive forces. Zarusky (1992: 92–95) offers a nuanced assessment of the
rationality issue.
 Radical-Left Attempts at Isomorphic Diffusion 83

Munich, anarchist writers spearheaded the first council republic – detached,

politically inexperienced intellectuals (Klemperer 2015: 113, 117, 124–25,
129–30), who did not even find backing from the local communists.4 And
when Russian-born communists soon took over and pushed toward harsh
Bolshevism, they lacked any strategy or capacity for establishing their hold
over arch-conservative Bavaria (Gerwarth 2018: 243–45). Similarly, in
Finland, recently formed, undisciplined Red Guards dragged the reluctant
Social-Democratic Party, which was losing control of the situation, into an
armed uprising (Kissane 2004: 974–76; see also Hodgson 1967: 47–53;
Kirby 1975: 216–20; Alapuro 1988: 154–55).
In line with a central argument of Chapter 2, these unorganized, often
youthful sectors were especially susceptible to the rash, distorted infer-
ences suggested by cognitive shortcuts. Whereas organizational leaders
rely on better information-processing capacities, and therefore have wider
bounds of rationality, individuals lack these organizational advantages
and are much more easily swept up by the availability and representative-
ness heuristics. These shortcuts hold particular sway over young people,
who lack political experience to ground their judgments (Traverso 2016:
205–8); and over political amateurs like the “coffee house anarchists”
(Evans 2003: 158–59) and “literary bohemians” who decided to become
revolutionaries in Munich (Schmolze 1978: 268; on their utterly unsys-
tematic decision-making, see 267–70, 289). Inferential distortions are
further exacerbated in situations of profound uncertainty, as they pre-
vailed after the chaotic end of WWI, the collapse of long-ruling dynasties
and empires, and the momentous Russian Revolution. As the ground was
shaking and the political opportunity structure was covered in dense fog,
unorganized people eagerly resorted to cognitive shortcuts, which pro-
vided the illusion of clarity. No wonder that the contentious initiatives
that emerged under these conditions deviated starkly from prudent cost–
benefit calculations. Political rationality was conspicuous by its absence.

A Wide Range of Emulation Efforts

The number and diversity of countries that experienced severe bouts of
emulative contention offer further evidence for the operation of cognitive
shortcuts. Given the risks of radical challenges, standard rationality
would have counseled caution: Left-wingers should have targeted only

4
Their rootlessness soon led several members of this self-appointed vanguard to embrace
nationalism and move dramatically toward the right (Schulz 1975: 564, 576–77, 709–11).
84 The Soviet Precedent and Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

the rare country that was especially ripe for revolution. Yet contrary to
such a careful, discriminating approach, rebellions erupted in many varie-
gated settings. Due to the representativeness heuristic, extreme leftists
clearly overestimated the similarity between Russia in 1917 and the
condition of their own country. Jumping to the conclusion that the
Bolshevik success was broadly replicable, they started a welter of emula-
tion efforts across Europe. Yet this stark deviation from rational consider-
ations meant that these imitation attempts occurred in objectively
unpropitious settings; therefore, they uniformly failed.
Scholars marvel at these miscalculations. Historian Ivan Berend (1998:
139), for instance, argues that “[t]he revolutionary attempts . . . were adven-
turist and refused to analyze the balance of forces objectively. They believed
with almost religious fervor in the world revolution.” As his colleague Frances
Carsten (1988: 211) characterizes “the atmosphere of 1918–19 in many
European countries, all counsels of caution, all more realistic assessments of
the situation were swept away.” Extreme leftists “grossly overestimated their
own strength” and proceeded with “amateurism and adventurism” (Carsten
1988: 214, 220). Similarly, Ivo Banac (1983: 2–3) highlights the rise of
“revolutionary expectations where there was no real basis for them at all. At
no point during the Red Wave were the new Communists of Eastern Europe
capable of seizing power.” These expert assessments corroborate my claim
that Lenin’s disciples disregarded conventional standards of rationality.
Remarkably, in November 1918 even conservative Switzerland saw a
countrywide “general strike of a clearly revolutionary character” (Rappard
1923: 298; Bernecker 2002: 266–68). This radical challenge arose from
spontaneous worker mobilization, which pushed the unions into action.
Conservatives were scared by “rumors with respect to the threatening
danger of Bolshevism, of revolution, of anarchy, of terrorism” (Swiss
bankers’ association cited by König 1998: 38). Intense loss aversion
prompted the government to convoke farmers’ militias for confronting the
strikers. To avoid a bloody showdown, union leaders, whose organizational
position allowed them to act with looser bounds of rationality and greater
prudence, ended the strike unconditionally. Betraying the depth of status-
quo-defenders’ fears, the government nevertheless imprisoned the top union-
ists. Moreover, this failed mass contention had lasting consequences, dis-
crediting the unions for decades. It also poisoned Swiss relations with the
USSR, which was accused of fomenting the unrest – falsely, as the opening of
Soviet archives in the 1990s revealed (König 1998: 37–40).
In the Netherlands, even the long-time leader of the moderate Social
Democratic Workers’ Party, Pieter Troelstra, was carried away by a
 The Crucial Link in the World Revolution? 85

sudden bout of radical fervor in November 1918 and spontaneously

“proclaimed that the working classes would now take power. But no
one had prepared for such a revolution, and the socialist leader was soon
forced to back down” (Blom 2006: 428). This impulsive effort to follow
the path traced by Lenin and his German emulators (see below) was ill-
considered and lacked any chance of success. Driven by cognitive short-
cuts, which reigned under high uncertainty, this abortive initiative pro-
voked distrust and hurt this social-democratic party for years.5
Altogether, a surprisingly wide range of countries experienced left-
wing contention inspired via inferential shortcuts by the communist take-
over in Russia. Interestingly, radical uprisings were clustered in Russia’s
neighborhood, where Lenin’s success was cognitively most available.
Furthermore, hope for Soviet military support added a rational consider-
ation; after all, despite its distortions, bounded rationality is a form of
rationality. Yet even in these settings, extremist initiatives were ill-attuned
to the political opportunity structure and unrealistic, demonstrating how
tightly bounded this rationality was. Among these countries in Russia’s
vicinity, Germany suffered the greatest, longest-lasting upheaval.

      ?

    
According to Bolshevist doctrine, Germany was next in the “inevitable”
advance of the world revolution unleashed by Lenin’s precedent.
Therefore, the country experienced many determined and prominent
imitation efforts. From 1918 to 1923, armed radicals repeatedly tried to
take power, at the national or provincial level. These isomorphic emula-
tion attempts began in Berlin, with the “Spartakus Uprising” of January
1919. This first assault stimulated its own wave of imitation efforts in
some industrial cities, especially Bremen. Interestingly, the quick and
ruthless suppression of these spontaneous challenges did not extinguish
the revolutionary fervor. Instead, extreme left-wingers’ firm belief in the
replicability of Lenin’s success, a typical product of the representativeness
heuristic, for years inspired numerous further rebellions, especially
renewed fighting in Berlin in March 1919, the Munich council republics

5
Interestingly, despite their strong left-wing orientation, Austria’s social democrats also
opposed and suppressed communist emulation efforts. For instance, in June 1919 they led
“armed socialist units to arrest 115 communist functionaries in order to prevent any kind
of revolutionary adventure” (Berend 1998: 136).
86 The Soviet Precedent and Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

of spring 1919, the Ruhr War of March–April 1920, violent turmoil in

Central Germany in March 1921, and communist challenges in Saxony,
Thuringia, and Hamburg in October 1923 (Broué 2006: 272–81,
362–78, 491–503, 755–78, 794–816).
The political context suggests the extremist goals and antidemocratic
impetus of these attempts at spreading revolution.6 Immediately after the
Kaiser’s ouster in November 1918, Germany’s provisional government of
mainstream and independent Social-Democrats, with the noteworthy
approval of a national assembly of workers and soldiers’ councils, con-
voked constituent assembly elections for mid-January 1919. In this way,
the new left-wing administration quickly sought to found a pluralist
democracy (documents in Michalka and Niedhart 1980: 24, 26, 38–44,
54, 57; Keil 1947: 30). Direct popular legitimation would allow for
creating a stable sociopolitical order and for marginalizing Lenin’s sym-
pathizers, who commanded little electoral support.7 To counteract these
consolidation efforts and promote their own revolution, left-wing extrem-
ists opposed early elections with all means;8 the nascent Communist Party
(Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands – KPD) rejected participation by a
lopsided vote of 62 to 23 (Winkler 2000: 388). In fact, left-wingers were
eager to grab power before the vote result would reveal their status as a
tiny minority.9 With this purpose in mind,10 they incessantly challenged
the provisional government in December 1918 (Kessler 1999: 37–43, 46),

6
As left-wing radical Emil Barth (1919: 130) highlighted, “the call for the National
[Constituent] Assembly meant the prevention of dictatorial measures by the Revolution.”
Gerwarth (2018: 235) recently highlighted left-wingers’ eagerness to attack democracy.
7
Orlow (1982: 192–302). Even Independent Social Democrats such as Hugo Haase (1929:
236), who strongly criticized the mainstream SPD, acknowledge that the rejection of quick
constituent assembly elections was inspired in the Soviet precedent and that this radicalism had
only minority support, even among workers. Aware of the latter fact, radical socialist Curt
Geyer (1976: 110–11) explicitly advocated a “dictatorship by the minority”!
8
See documents in Michalka and Niedhart (1980: 27, 33, 35, 44–46, 66, 68); Geyer (1976:
78–79, 86). Similarly, Rosa Luxemburg ([1918] 2012) forcefully rejected the national
assembly as an example of bourgeois parliamentarism.
9
To highlight this fundamental weakness, a mainstream Social Democrat defied the
Spartakus Group explicitly at the national meeting of workers’ and soldiers’ councils,
“they may run in the election, then we will see who [= how many] will back them”! (Max
Cohen-Reuss quoted in Michalka and Niedhart 1980: 41).
10
In a leaflet of early January 1919, the KPD convoked “male and female workers, soldiers,
and sailors” for the “fight against the National Assembly . . . the laughable product of the
capitalist counterrevolution” (reproduced in Müller 1926: 220–21). See also Nettl (1969:
443, 452–53). Similarly, Bremen’s radical-left council republic initially tried to impede the
constituent assembly election inside the city (Kuckuk 2010: 73).
 The Crucial Link in the World Revolution? 87

demanded its overthrow (e.g., Pieck 1959: 442, 448), and launched a
frontal assault in January 1919.11

The “Spartakus Uprising” in Berlin

Cognitive biases induced radicals to emulate the Bolshevist Revolution at
all cost by inciting armed conflicts and uprisings (Pieck 1959: 412–78;
Liebknecht 1974: 643, 646, 662, 677–79, 681; Weitz 1997: 84;
Pesendorfer 2012: 83–86, 152–56, 166; Luban 2017: 51–54). Jumping at
any apparent opportunity to imitate Lenin’s precedent and determined to
forestall the constituent assembly elections, the Spartakus League and
Revolutionary Shop Stewards undertook a spontaneous and ill-planned
attempt to unseat the social-democratic government in January 1919
(Bernstein [1921] 1998: chap. 12). Because these extremists lacked any
firm organization and recruited followers from unorganized segments of
the working and under-class (Lindemann 1974: 41–44; Mommsen 2016:
39), they were easily swept up by cognitive shortcuts and the resulting
inspiration by the Bolshevik precedent. Although rational assessments of
the prevailing power constellation would have urged caution, these sectar-
ian groupings fell prey to “political fever”; their “sense of responsibility . . .
lay buried in the effervescence of illusions,” as even a left socialist lamented
(Müller 1925: 35–36). Rosa Luxemburg herself despaired about her com-
rades’ “somewhat childish, half-baked, narrow-minded radicalism” (cited
in Nettl 1969: 475; see also Leviné-Meyer 1973: 66; Dittmann 1995: 631).
But words of caution could not contain the revolutionary euphoria
derived via inferential heuristics from the Soviet triumph. Spartakus
leader Liebknecht (1974: 588–89) stressed that “the Russian Soviet
Republic . . . stirs up those left behind [in the world revolution], fills
vacillators with courage, and boosts everybody’s energy and determin-
ation by a factor of ten.” Seeing the SPD administration as analogue to
the Kerensky government (Liebknecht 1974: 623), which the Bolshevists
had toppled in Petrograd, he constantly called for emulation (Liebknecht
1974: 582, 643, 646, 66, 677–79, 681, 688–90; see recently Pesendorfer
2012: 166–67). As soon as mass mobilization got under way in Berlin in

11
The government, of course, highlighted this antidemocratic impetus in its desperate effort to win
support against the Spartakus Uprising. A leaflet of early January proclaimed: “Spartakus is
now fighting for total power. The government, which in the course of ten days wants to carry
out the free decision of the people over its own fate, shall be toppled with violence. The people
shall not be allowed to speak. Its voice shall be suppressed” (quoted in Müller 1926: 57;
similarly 233). SPD politicians made similar appeals in Stuttgart (Keil 1947: 136).
88 The Soviet Precedent and Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

January 1919, Liebknecht and his fellow radicals plunged into a frontal
attack on the government (Nettl 1969: 478–83; Luban 2017: 57–58, 61).
In trying to exploit an unclear, chaotic situation, the hasty revolutionaries
initiated a badly prepared imitation attempt (Pieck 1959: 463–69 and
especially 472–73; cf. Barth 1919: 132; recent analysis in Jones 2016:
183, 190–91, 206).
This so-called Spartakus Uprising emerged from protests against the
government’s legal dismissal of Berlin’s far-left police chief. As huge
crowds gathered and the mainstream Social-Democratic government
seemed to have only precarious control,12 Spartakus leaders and
Revolutionary Shop Stewards rashly inferred that the opportunity for
grabbing power had arrived (Müller 1926: 32–36; Ledebour 1954:
91–93). A haphazard revolutionary committee declared the incumbent
administration “deposed” and proclaimed its own rule. Armed extremists
besieged government buildings and occupied newspaper offices, including
the social-democratic Vorwärts (Forward). But contrary to their role
model Lenin, the self-proclaimed revolutionaries lacked anything resem-
bling a disciplined vanguard party. Therefore, they failed to act in a
resolute way and instead dithered and hesitated. Eventually, the crowds
dispersed, and the uprising faded (Pieck 1959: 472–73; Waldman 1967:
231, 234–35; Broué 2006: 236, 242).
Left-wing socialist Emil Barth (1919: 132) complains that the rebellion
was based on irresponsible “information” about strong support from
soldiers, which did not materialize; “and a thousand times more irrespon-
sibly organized was the struggle, which was totally without leadership.”
Revolutionary Shop Steward Richard Müller (1926: 76; similarly radical
socialist Geyer 1976: 90–92) frowned, “The intoxication with illusions
[of the revolt’s first day] was followed by a terrible hangover, and then a
frightful confusion took over, which finally ended in a wild panic.”
Independent Socialist Wilhelm Dittmann (1995: 637) concurs that “for
a fight against the Ebert-Scheidemann government every precondition
was lacking.”
This sudden revolutionary challenge initially caught the government in
a weak position (Müller 1926: 39–40; Scheidemann 1929, vol. 2:
290–91). After all, the loyalty and discipline of the war-worn, tattered
army were uncertain (Kessler 1999: 7, 9, 42–43, 51, 54). But the SPD

12
Noske (1920: 69, 71); Bernstein ([1921] 1998: 193, 196, 199); (Kessler 1999: 42–43, 51,
54); on the government’s weakness, see Scheidemann (1921: 214–17, 228, 231, 234–35,
238). Waldman (1967: 235–38, 243) also stresses the government’s initial vulnerability.
 The Crucial Link in the World Revolution? 89

could count on its powerful party organization and extensive union wing.
Through this mass mobilization, the government demonstrated its wide-
spread support, soon tipping the balance of street contention against the
militants.13 As this success shows, the hasty effort to emulate Lenin’s
power grab inherently had low chances of success; it reflected the distor-
tions caused by cognitive shortcuts, rather than careful cost-benefit calcu-
lations, which even the communist Luxemburg unsuccessfully tried to
impress on her comrades. Tragically, affected by the same heuristic infer-
ences, mainstream Social Democracy then over-reacted as well, crushing
the faltering rebellion with unnecessary violence, as Chapter 4 shows.

Radical Spillover to Bremen

How much left-wing extremists were under the spell of cognitive short-
cuts is revealed by the fact that the ill-fated Spartakus Uprising – after its
defeat! – stimulated protests and rebellions in several other German cities,
such as Brunswick, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, and Leipzig.14 This prolifer-
ation of radicalism went farthest with the council republic declared in
Bremen (Carsten 1988: 148–50, 218; Broué 2006: 263–65). Left-wingers
there had long maintained close connections to Russian Bolshevists
(Carsten 1988: 16, 147, 211). After the Kaiserreich’s collapse, Bremen’s
worker and soldiers’ councils charted a radical course; extreme leftists
also did unusually well in local elections. The news of the Spartakus
Uprising and its brutal suppression spurred further polarization.
Consequently, the ultra-left excluded mainstream Social Democrats, con-
demned as traitors to the cause of world revolution, from city govern-
ment. Then they went so far as to proclaim the dictatorship of the
proletariat (Kuckuk 2010: 68–70, 77).
Any systematic assessment would have shown that this isolated
upsurge of radicalism had infinitesimal chances of success. An assault
on government power in Berlin was already unrealistic because the rest of
the country was unlikely to follow this revolutionary foray; an isolated
coup in the capital would soon be squashed. If the Spartakus Uprising is
explicable only via the distortions caused by bounded rationality, then the
imitation effort in Bremen, a medium-sized provincial city, bordered on

13
Müller-Franken (1928: 255, 264). Provincial governments employed the same strategy,
e.g., in Stuttgart (Keil 1947: 135).
14
See in general Waldman (1967: 254–55); Wehler (2010: 398–99); for Hamburg, Paschen
(2008: 82–87).
90 The Soviet Precedent and Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

irrationality, as historian Hans Mommsen (2016: 60) judges. Yet

“Bremen’s Communists believed that with the eruption of the January
Uprising i.e. Spartakus Uprising in Berlin, the German revolution had
entered a new phase: As in Russia the February Revolution was deepened
by the October Revolution, now in Germany the November Revolution
would be followed by the January Revolution, the bourgeois revolution
by the socialist revolution” (Kuckuk 2010: 69–70). Notably, however,
the far-left in Bremen made its coup only after the government’s counter-
revolutionary victory in Berlin! Therefore, the probabilities of success
were practically nil.15 In fact, as government troops surrounded
Bremen, the declaration of a council republic was quickly revoked.
“The proletariat” – or rather, its self-proclaimed vanguard – renounced
its dictatorship as hastily as it had imposed it.
Thus, due to the prevalence of cognitive heuristics, inspiration from Lenin’s
success provided a remarkably strong impulse – powerful enough to override
any lessons provided by the failed Spartakus Uprising in Berlin. As a com-
munist leader from Bremen wrote, “we wanted to set an example proving that
what had been possible in Russia was also possible in Germany” (Jannack
2012: 152). But the Social-Democratic government quickly revealed this belief
as illusionary by easily reconquering the rebellious city.
Even in Berlin, the squashing of the Spartakus Uprising did not deter
left-wingers from spearheading another armed rebellion only two months
later. In March, renewed street fighting quickly escalated and assumed “a
much more serious civil war character” than in January (Kessler 1999:
82; see also 83–90). These bitter clashes, inflamed by atrocities on both
sides, cost approximately 1,200 lives – but predictably did not topple the
government (Jones 2016: 251–78). Thus, cognitive shortcuts and the
resulting eagerness to emulate the Bolshevik example led left-wing
extremists into the same cul-de-sac repeatedly. Their bounds of rationality
were so tight as to preclude learning from painful experiences.

The Council Republics in Munich

Despite the costly failures in Berlin and Bremen, radical leftists soon
undertook similar emulation efforts in a particularly unpropitious setting,

15
Bremen radicals reached out to the militant workers of the heavy industries in the Ruhr
valley, but extremists there pushed for the economic goal of “socializing” the factories,
rather than the political goal of establishing a proletarian dictatorship (Broué 2006:
266–69).
 The Crucial Link in the World Revolution? 91

namely arch-conservative Bavaria (Jones 2016: 290). In spring 1919,

anarchists, left-socialists, and communists seized power in Munich and
sequentially installed two council republics. These bold takeovers were
inspired by the Russian Revolution as well as its emulation in Budapest,
where a communist regime was installed in March 1919 (discussed
later).16 A leader of Munich’s first revolutionary adventure, intellectual
Erich Mühsam, afterward wrote to Lenin, “On March 21, the news of the
declaration of the council republic in Hungary hit here like a bomb . . .
Speakers in popular assemblies found enthusiastic approval for their
appeal to emulate the Hungarian example . . . The positive news from
Budapest . . . multiplied the Communists’ activism” and helped to prompt
“the anticipation that the Bavarian Soviet Republic was an ideal goal that
could be achieved in short order” (Mühsam 1920/29: 140, 142; see also
145, 148–49, 151, 175).
In April, Munich radicals indeed instituted a council system, which
quickly turned into a soviet republic under communist leadership. The
Central Revolutionary Council of Bavaria proudly announced, “The
Bavarian Council Republic follows the example of the Russian and
Hungarian peoples . . . Long live the world revolution!” (reproduced in
Schmolze 1978: 271). Similarly, Mühsam (1919: 247) exulted, “In alli-
ance with revolutionary Russia and Hungary the new Bavaria will extol
the revolutionary International and pave the way for the world revolu-
tion!” (original emphasis). He was convinced that “the establishment of
the Council Republic in Bavaria was an eminently significant event for the
world revolution” (Mühsam 1920/29: 149; similar hopes reported in
Schmolze 1978, 334–35).
As left-socialist Ernst Toller reports, the ill-planned installation of a
Soviet-style regime was spurred by the facile inference that “what suc-
ceeded in Russia must be successful here as well” (Toller [1933] 2009: 86;
similarly Schmolze 1978: 335). Accordingly, “decisive political influence
was won by a few Russians, merely because their passport certified them
as Soviet citizens. The grand deeds of the Russian Revolution bestowed
each of these men with a magic glow; experienced German Communists
looked up to them as if blinded” (Toller [1933] 2009: 110). In fact, Lenin
soon telegraphed an extensive action program of thirteen exhortations
(reproduced in Neubauer 1958: 74–75). Obediently, the eventual leader

16
Neubauer (1958). On the impulse provided by Hungary’s pro-communist regime, see
Leviné-Meyer (1973: 84); Kluge (1985: 132–33); Read (2008: 151); and Jones (2016:
290, 294).
92 The Soviet Precedent and Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

of this revolutionary experiment, Russian-born communist Eugen Leviné,

announced, “We’ll proceed as in Russia” (Toller [1933] 2009: 94). In
their political initiatives, radical leaders indeed took a great deal of inspir-
ation from Soviet Russia and Soviet Hungary (Neubauer 1958: 75–90).
Admiration for these Bolshevist precedents swept away rational calcu-
lations and prompted emulation efforts that were highly unrealistic and
badly planned (Leviné-Meyer 1973: 85–87, 92, 94; Schmolze 1978:
289–92, 301–2). As even left-wing socialist Richard Müller (1926: 195)
stressed, “all the political and military preconditions for the proclamation
of a council republic were missing.” In the rest of Germany, “the [revolu-
tionary] movement had been squashed”; therefore, the radical stirrings in
Munich were “isolated” and unviable. In fact, with national help the
displaced state government aborted this attempt to replicate the Russian
Revolution by replicating the repression of Berlin’s Spartakus Uprising. In
retrospect, even its protagonists regarded this bold experiment as rash
and premature (Mühsam 1920/29 167, 174) and admitted their colossal
mistake (Toller [1933] 2009: 96, 112).

The Incessant Repetition of Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

As this analysis of radical-left power grabs in Germany during early 1919
shows, extremists were caught up in cognitive heuristics, fell for problem-
atic inferences, and started revolutionary uprisings in hopeless circum-
stances. That this happened repeatedly demonstrates the tightness of their
bounded rationality, which long precluded learning from disastrous
experiences. Pro-communists were so captivated by Lenin’s success that
they threw prudence to the wind. The availability and representativeness
heuristics gave the Soviet precedent an overwhelming force that precluded
any thorough assessment of the actual constellation of power.
Strikingly, despite these early failures, radicals continued to spearhead
unrealistic uprisings in subsequent years as well (Broué 2006: 272–81,
362–78, 491–503, 755–78, 794–816). As these emulation efforts kept
overestimating the feasibility of replicating the Bolshevik success, they
invariably turned into “stillborn revolutions” (Angress 1972: 121–22).
“Each was a bigger fiasco than its predecessor,” Eric Weitz (2007: 91), a
specialist on German communism, emphasizes. Such ill-planned rebel-
lions, quickly crushed by bloody governmental repression, occurred
during the Ruhr War of March 1920 (Eliasberg 1974), the “March
Action” of 1921 (Angress 1972: chaps. 4–7; Lindemann 1974: 249,
281–86; Dittmann 1995: 806–8; Weitz 1997: 103–8), and the revolts in
 Fleeting Success – and Quick Disaster 93

Central Germany and Hamburg in October 1923 (Angress 1972: chaps.

12–13; Mommsen 2016: 191–94). Every one of these imitative rebellions
suffered definitive defeat (Nolte 1987a: 84–106; Wehler 2010: 397–406).
As Chapter 4 explains, the demonstration effects of Lenin’s success ran
afoul of the even more powerful deterrent effects that the Bolshevist
triumph provoked as well: Reaction invariably crushed revolution.

  –   : 

  
Strong inspiration by the Soviet precedent and the resulting belief in the
imminent advance of the world revolution (Kun 2011: 63, 72, 74, 76,
197–98) also prompted Hungary’s Communists to take power in March
1919. Due to special domestic and international circumstances, however,
they won office via negotiations rather than an armed assault; conse-
quently, they co-governed with the Socialist Party (as Lenin had initially
done as well). But because the new unity government adopted a hard-left
program, the communists managed to enact very radical measures.
The Habsburg Empire’s collapse in late 1918 opened the floodgates to
popular mobilization, stimulated in part by the Russian precedent.
Already in mid-1918, communist leader Béla Kun (2011: 72) had
exulted: “At the present moment, the Hungarian proletariat is talking
and, actually, acting Russian.” In his view, “the Russian proletarian
Republic is not waiting in vain for the international revolution . . . In
Austria-Hungary the crisis has matured” (Kun 2011: 19). Seeing strong
analogies to Russia in 1917 (Kun 2011: 47–50), he predicted that “the
revolutionary tide in Austria” was about to get under way (Kun 2011: 61;
see also 67, 69, 71–72). With respect to his home country, “Kun stated:
‘The one-year existence of the Russian dictatorship of the proletariat
leaves no doubt that we must duplicate its course in Hungary’” (cited in
Völgyes 1971: 160).
As WWI came to an end, democratic reformists and mainstream
socialists first ran provisional governments in Budapest. Yet severe
domestic turmoil and Hungary’s mutilation by the victors of WWI under-
mined the grip of these administrations (Deák 1968: 134–35; Vermes
1971: 41, 46–50, 53, 59–60; Berend 1998: 124–26). Hope for Soviet
military support against Hungary’s rapacious neighbors and their
Western great-power allies then allowed the communists led by Lenin’s
disciple Kun to engineer a unity government with the socialists in March
1919 (Tökés 1967: 123, 134–35, 142–45, 163, 173, 205, 213). The
94 The Soviet Precedent and Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

expectation that the Hungarian Soviet republic would further propel the
revolutionary wave in Europe (Kenez 1971: 80) and that communism’s
spread would, in line with Marxist doctrine, erase national boundaries
(cf. Kun 2011: 44) and thus make Hungary’s severe territorial losses
irrelevant provided strong additional impulses for the radical-left
experiment.
These hopes inspired by the Bolshevist triumph gave the Hungarian
Communists control of the government without the need for the violent
uprising that the party’s left wing had planned (Tökés 1967: 149).17
Although the installation of the Budapest Soviet republic thus differed
from the Russian precedent (Völgyes 1971: 164–65), cognitive inferences
derived from Lenin’s success were crucial for its emergence. Particularly
important was the belief in the global advance of Bolshevism, which
implied “Communist Hungary’s self-appointed and Moscow-inspired
task as the center for the spreading of world revolution in Eastern
Europe,” as Rudolf Tökés (1967: 144; see also Berend 1998: 129) argues.
This expert highlights that “it is difficult to find a rational explanation for
the patchwork quilt of dogmatic armchair socialism, shrewd psychology,
faulty logic, messianic zeal, and cunning schemes that comprised the
leading ideological and pragmatic assumptions of the first month of the
Hungarian revolution . . . Both assumptions depended on Russian aid and
the outbreak of revolutions abroad . . . [T]he revolutionary leadership
implicitly accepted both eventualities as future certainties. These psycho-
logical crutches, irrational and farfetched as they might have been, were
the most important ingredients of . . . ‘the will to revolution’” (Tökés
1967: 145). In the terminology of this book, cognitive shortcuts, which
derived excessive expectations from the Russian precedent, were driving
forces in the establishment of Hungary’s radical regime. Budapest
Communists acted with tightly bounded rationality.
As a consequence, the Hungarian Soviet Republic charted an incred-
ibly bold course by enacting profound domestic transformations and by
trying to export revolution to other countries. On the external front, the
new regime conquered Slovakia and installed a fleeting soviet republic
(Toma 1958). It also linked up with the council republic in Munich and
tried to foment a communist uprising in Vienna (Rothschild 1974: 149;
Carsten 1988: 101–3, 219, 226–38; Read 2008: 237).

17
An earlier coup attempt, inspired by the Spartakus Uprising in Berlin (Völgyes 1971:
163), had failed quickly (Rothschild 1974: 143).
 Fleeting Success – and Quick Disaster 95

Internally, the communists got the new government to impose wide-

spread factory nationalizations and turn large rural estates into state
farms. By not distributing land to the peasants and landless laborers, they
even bested their role model Lenin and stayed closer to collectivist
Marxist doctrine by avoiding the creation of private property and decree-
ing socialist ownership (Tökés 1967: 185–88, 216; Dreisziger 1968:
21–22; Eckelt 1971: 73–75, 80–86; Kenez 1971: 76–78; Janos 1982:
193, 199; see also Deák 1968: 136–38). These radical left-wingers also
socialized urban property so that poorer people received – or forcefully
occupied – living space in the homes of better-off citizens. Moreover, the
Hungarian Soviet Republic attacked religious institutions and practices
and cracked down on artistic and intellectual freedom (Rothschild 1974:
147–48). Needless to say, these ambitious, dogmatic, and dictatorial
assaults on the established order provoked a great deal of enmity while
failing to garner significant support (see, e.g., Gioielli 2015: 109–20). For
instance, local-level peasant uprisings erupted across the country (Bodó
2011: 138). Kun and his dogmatic comrades responded with increasing
repression, including assassinations and torture (Tökés 1967: 153–54,
158–59; Carsten 1988: 243), further inflaming the conflict (Read 2008:
238–40).
The international front brought no relief either. Lenin, embroiled in a
dangerous civil war at home, did not manage to send any military aid.
The predictions of Europe-wide social revolutions proved completely
illusory. Thus, the rationales for acquiescing in the communist co-
government soon evaporated. In summer 1919, therefore, “a ‘popular
counter-revolution’, [which] consisted of a nation-wide, anti-communist
resistance movement of mainly peasant composition . . . destroyed the
Hungarian Soviet Republic” (Deák 1968: 129; see also Tökés 1967:
192–94; Kenez 1971: 86). Moreover, its Romanian enemies defeated
Hungary’s ramshackle Red Army and occupied Budapest. After their
withdrawal in late 1919, right-wing military leaders established authori-
tarian control, as Chapter 4 analyzes in depth.
The case of Hungary’s chaotic Soviet Republic demonstrates the
powerful effects of the heuristic inferences derived from the Russian
Revolution. The wild idea that a revolution in Budapest would help
propel the communist riptide unleashed by Lenin in 1917, topple dom-
inoes across Europe, and thus bring Hungary relief in its territorial
conflicts with its greedy neighbors initially held some appeal for broader
sectors. This twisted calculation, a product of bounded rationality,
enabled the communists to win government power and enact their
96 The Soviet Precedent and Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

radical program, which trumped even the USSR by anticipating the

collectivization of agriculture (Dreisziger 1968: 21–22; Völgyes 1971:
168–69). But as Béla Kun and his left-wing comrades had jumped to
conclusions, they soon fell into an abyss. The Hungarian Soviet
Republic suffered a disastrous failure, with lasting consequences for the
despoiled country: It was the first nation that after WWI fell under
authoritarian rule, as the next chapter explains.

      

 
The Northwestern periphery of the Russian Empire also experienced revolu-
tionary uprisings prompted by Lenin’s success. As the Baltics and Finland
were part of the Tsar’s realm, these conflicts resulted not only from emulation
efforts by native radicals but also from Bolshevik attempts to control the edges
of the crumbling empire. For ideological reasons, Lenin and Trotsky were
particularly eager to spread communism westward. After all, they hoped that
their own precedent would set in motion a world-revolutionary chain reaction
and quickly affect Germany, then France and England. Accordingly, the
Baltics were the stepping stone to Germany (with Hungary’s Soviet republic
opening another route to Central Europe). For these reasons, Bolshevist
attempts at exporting revolution reinforced the efforts of Baltic and Finnish
radicals to imitate Lenin’s triumph. Already, in 1917/18 a wave of fierce
conflicts had erupted along the Eastern shores of the Baltic Sea.
Immediately following Russia’s October Revolution, Bolshevist group-
ings took power in the Baltic regions of the old Romanov Empire. Local
communists, based on strong support and close guidance from Petrograd,
suppressed nascent independence movements, which had advanced the
farthest in Estonia. Initially, these extremists received considerable backing
from industrial workers and landless rural poor, especially in Latvia
(Berend 1998: 134), where they also found many followers among soldiers
(Plakans 2011: 302–3). But with draconian measures and frequent terror
(Lieven 1993: 57–59; Von Rauch 1995: 39, 45, 58–59, 62), radical leftists
quickly undermined their position, particularly in Estonia (Brüggemann
2006: 215–17; Plakans 2011: 296). Moreover, Lenin’s imperious dissol-
ution of Russia’s constituent assembly in January 1918 glaringly revealed
communism’s antidemocratic impetus (Von Rauch 1995: 38). This arbi-
trary coup strengthened the determination of Estonians, Latvians, and
Lithuanians to push for independent nationhood.
 Efforts at Isomorphic Revolution in the Baltics and Finland 97

After German troops occupied the Baltics from February through

November 1918 and drove out the communists, these left-wingers returned
as soon as the Kaiserreich collapsed. After all, Lenin saw conquest of the
littoral as crucial for exporting Bolshevism to Central Europe, particularly
Germany (Von Rauch 1995: 51; Berend 1998: 134). A chaotic year of
fighting followed. Countless skirmishes and battles pitted Moscow-
supported communists against incipient national governments, who
received varying support from remaining German troops, Finnish volun-
teers in Estonia, Polish contingents in Latvia and Lithuania, British naval
units, “white” Russian counterrevolutionaries, and adventurers pursuing
their own gain. Shared aversion to communism brought enough military
cooperation among these heterogeneous forces to fight Soviet advances to a
standstill (Von Rauch 1995: 49–70; Plakans 2011: 301–7). Facing a dan-
gerous civil war at home, Lenin placed priority on securing his own reign in
Russia. Therefore, he eventually signed peace treaties that guaranteed Baltic
states’ independence. The spread of revolution, fomented by Soviet military
intervention, was thus halted. After averting the Bolshevist threat,
Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian nationalism also moved against
German, Polish, and “white” Russian domination. By playing these diver-
gent forces off against each other (for Estonia, see Brüggemann 2003), the
new nations eventually consolidated their autonomy.
A similar sequence of events played out in Finland. Bottom-up worker
mobilization inspired by the Petrograd events, combined with the involve-
ment of Russian soldiers, prompted a panicked response from right-wing
and centrist forces, which induced left-wing radicals to start a bloody civil
war raging from January to May 1918. What facilitated the outbreak of
this fierce conflict was the collapse of the Russian state, which had since
1809 controlled the Grand Duchy of Finland and had abolished the
Finnish military (Hamalainen 1979: 77). When the Romanov Empire
crumbled in the Russian Revolution, the door seemed open for an extrem-
ist power grab (Alapuro 1988: 152–53, 156, 189, 194–95).
Radicalized by the precedent of the Bolshevik takeover, which they
interpreted via the availability and representativeness heuristics, Finnish
workers and young left-wingers immediately, in November 1917, jumped
to the conclusion “that a revolutionary situation now existed in the
country.”18 Therefore, they wanted to act on their own initiative and

18
Kirby (2006: 161); see also (Smith 1958: 19–22). Alapuro (1988: 168–69) implausibly
denies that the Bolshevik takeover had an impact, but then (190) does acknowledge
its effect.
98 The Soviet Precedent and Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

disregard the caution embraced by many union leaders and especially the
parliamentary social-democratic party.19 Documenting this divergence
between prudent organizational officials and mass actors swept away by
cognitive shortcuts, a leader recorded in his diary, “[I] became wise
during the November strike. Then when all others became crazy” (cited
in Hamalainen 1979: 47; see also documents in Kirby 1975: 189–90,
196–200, 229–30). The impulse to emulate Lenin’s triumph inspired the
bald demand of a Finnish left-winger, who had witnessed the Petrograd
events first-hand (Hodgson 1967: 62): “We must follow the Russian
tactic and make a social revolution” (cited in Kirby 1975: 220; see also
216–19). The radical left indeed formed militias and red guards to pre-
pare the seizure of power during a massive general strike. But by mar-
shaling all their remaining influence, the Social-Democratic leadership
narrowly avoided an immediate assault on the government in
November 1917 (Alapuro 1988: 193–94; see also Smith 1958: 27–28;
Hodgson 1967: 30–36, 39–50).
Under the spell of the same cognitive shortcuts as the extremist red
guards, conservatives and centrists clearly overestimated the breadth and
strength of support for a Bolshevik-style revolution among Finnish Social
Democrats (Hodgson 1967: 58–60). Fearing a replication of the Russian
Revolution, they therefore created their own armed formations. Because
the independent state emerging in Finland lacked a military and police
force, the center-right government in January 1918, when radical-left
agitation surged again, turned these paramilitaries into official state
organs (Hodgson 1967: 51–52; Alapuro 1988: 171–72, 193–94).
Worried in turn about marginalization and suppression, the radical-left
militias now took up arms and “carried out a coup d’état.”20 To prevent a
conservative hegemony and promote their own ideological projects, they
tried to conquer power. But, partly to win broader support during the
civil war, they did not immediately enact their revolutionary goals and

19
Smith (1958: 23–28, 33–34); Hodgson (1967: 30, 59–63); Hamalainen (1979: 46–51,
115); Alapuro (1988: 161–73, especially 167–70); see also documents in Kirby (1975:
193–95).
20
Haapala and Tikka (2012: 74; similarly 76). Interestingly, the parliamentary leaders of
the Social-Democratic Party did not endorse this move to armed struggle and attempt at
revolution. As in Germany, party officials had longstanding experience in politics and
commanded established procedures for information processing and debate. Accordingly,
they acted with looser bounds of rationality and advocated prudence, disavowing the
radical efforts to imitate the precedent of Communist Russia.
 Conclusion 99

refrained, for instance, from the nationalization of business (Smith 1958:

55; Alapuro 1988: 174–75; Kirby 2006: 162).
Rooted in the industrial working class, the “Reds” controlled the
urban areas in Finland’s south, whereas the “Whites” predominated in
the rural regions. Because both sides were evenly balanced, fighting was
intense, dragged on for months, and cost about 50,000 lives (Gatrell
2010: 569) – a terrible toll for a population of 3.1 million (see also
Haapala and Tikka 2012: 82–83). Eventually, German support allowed
the Whites to defeat the Reds, whose surviving leaders fled to Soviet
Russia and formed the Finnish Communist Party in Moscow (Hodgson
1967: 80–84; Kirby 2006: 171). Thus, another fairly spontaneous bout of
contention, which escalated into an attempt to replicate Lenin’s power
grab, proved unsuccessful.


As this chapter shows, inspiration by the stunning Russian Revolution
induced radical leftists in a wide range of countries to undertake a host of
quick emulation efforts. What Lenin had achieved in Petrograd suddenly
seemed feasible across Europe and the world. As the availability heuristic
drew tremendous attention to the first communist takeover, the represen-
tativeness heuristic suggested its easy replicability. Carried away by these
cognitive shortcuts, left-wingers in many nations jumped to the conclu-
sion that they could also succeed with the armed seizure of power. That
these precipitous uprisings were concentrated in Central and Eastern
Europe, close to the epicenter of the revolutionary earthquake and to
Soviet troops, shows the rational kernel in bounded rationality. Yet this
rationality was tightly bounded: These emulation efforts were rash and ill-
planned; they erupted in a wide variety of countries with diverse and
mostly unpropitious power constellations; they were incessantly repeated
even after earlier defeats; and they erupted far away as well, even in Rio
de Janeiro. Many people risked – and quite a few lost – their lives due to
the misleading inferences derived from the Soviet precedent via cognitive
heuristics.
Together with the Russian Revolution, which created a communist
regime promoting world revolution, this wave of radical imitation efforts
fueled the autocratic groundswell of the interwar years by instilling deep
fear in a wide range of status-quo defenders. Suddenly, they seemed to
face the threat of extremist takeover and profound, painful transform-
ations. Interestingly, these sectors shared the same fundamental inference
100 The Soviet Precedent and Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

that cognitive heuristics suggested to Lenin’s disciples, namely that the

existing sociopolitical order was precarious and that a revolutionary
assault had good chances of success. Yet, of course, what lit up the radical
left with euphoria filled the right, center, and even the moderate left with
dread. The following chapter examines how these forces reacted to the
unexpected challenge.
 4

The Suppression of Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

and Its Limited Regime Effects

After Chapter 3 analyzed the overeager attempts of radical leftists in

many countries to imitate the communist takeover in Russia, this chapter
highlights the excessive reaction of status-quo defenders. Interestingly,
just as the availability and representativeness heuristics inspired in rad-
icals the illusion of the easy replicability of the Bolshevist revolution, so
these same heuristics instilled tremendous fear of this – for them scary –
outcome in conservatives, centrists, and even moderate left-wingers.
Thus, cognitive shortcuts deeply shaped the perceptions and inferences
of political actors across the ideological spectrum. Due to these
heuristic inferences, Lenin’s striking success suggested the fragility of
the established order to political forces of all stripes. But, of course,
what gave leftists hope sent shivers down the spine of status-quo defend-
ers. Given their own interests, a communist revolution would cause
dramatic losses. The specter of Bolshevism therefore activated people’s
disproportionate loss aversion, breeding a fierce determination to forestall
radical transformations. The asymmetrical valuation of losses versus
gains thus fueled the interactive dynamic highlighted in this study:
Communist efforts at diffusion prompted anti-communist counter-
diffusion. The precedent that excited the radical left operated as a dread-
ful deterrent for a broad arc of sectors ranging from the right to the
moderate left.
This coincidence and interaction of demonstration and deterrent
effects, which produced a wave of violent conflicts after late 1917, had
two important characteristics. First, because the desire to achieve gains
has significantly weaker motivating force than loss aversion, there were
limited numbers of emulative revolutionaries, yet a much broader

101
102 The Suppression of Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

phalanx of forces opposing them. Radical minorities faced strong coun-

terrevolutionary majorities. And because these wide-ranging sectors
included elites that commanded enormous power capabilities, especially
relatively organized coercion,1 Lenin’s followers never had a realistic
chance. Consequently, their isomorphic emulation efforts suffered uni-
form defeat, as Chapter 3 stressed.
Second, the asymmetrical valuation of losses over gains induced status-
quo defenders to crush radical imitation attempts with all means, includ-
ing brutal force. The ferocity of this counter-diffusion, which exceeded
instrumental needs and utilitarian calculations, is noteworthy – one of the
puzzles motivating this book. This overkill reflected the distortionary
impact of loss aversion, a fundamental psychological mechanism. The
fierceness and cruelty that look anomalous and “unbelievable” from the
perspective of standard rationality arose from the twisted workings of
bounded rationality.
Scholars uninvolved in Political Science’s debates over rationality, who
can therefore count as neutral, objective judges, commonly lament the
extraordinary, rationally unnecessary violence that establishment sectors
unleashed against communist emulation efforts (e.g., Bernecker 2002:
104, 185–86, 248–49; Gerwarth 2016: 72–75, 99, 125, 131, 139–40,
151–52, 166–67). For instance, Rothschild (1974: 154, 150) criticizes the
“mindless carnage” perpetrated by Hungarian reactionaries after the
collapse of the 1919 communist regime: “In the classic pattern of counter-
revolutions, the white terror . . . dwarfed the red excesses.” Similarly,
Mommsen (2016: 68–69) laments that after defeating the Bavarian
Soviet Republic, the victorious military “installed a reign of terror that
by far dwarfed the red terror.” Haapala and Tikka (2012: 73) also
highlight “the often unpredictable and irrational nature of the violence
during the [Finnish] Civil War.” Gerwarth and Horne (2012b: 13)
deplore that “counter-revolutionary bands . . . acted with such savagery
across Central and Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the First World
War.” Based on figures from Austria, Germany, and Hungary that show
the stark disproportionality of the “white terror,” Kershaw (2015: 107)
concludes, “The violence of the counter-revolutionaries knew few

1
With the autocratic empires’ defeat in WWI, established militaries, even the Prussian war
machine, crumbled; and in the new states of Central and Eastern Europe, militaries had yet
to form. The years after 1917 therefore saw a chaotic proliferation of paramilitary forces,
ranging from worker militias to warlords’ private armies (Gerwarth and Horne 2012a,
2012b; Gerwarth 2016).
 Cognitive Mechanisms and the Russian Revolution 103

bounds. It invariably went far beyond the revolutionary violence that they
claimed to be combating.”
Remarkably, this counterrevolutionary sequence of exaggerated fears
of “communism” and excessive repression of left-wing stirrings unfolded
in South America as well, far away from the epicenter of Lenin’s revolu-
tion. As a wave of socialist and anarchist contention and labor unrest
swept across the region in 1918/19 (Dukes 1979: 166–67; Albert 1988:
237, 249; Deutsch 1999: 61–63, 67, 80–82, 111), status-quo defenders
cracked down hard. Given the effective weakness of worker movements
and left-wing parties, this reactionary reflex lacked a rational justification.
But “the Russian Revolution of 1917 . . . promoted a generalized, great
fear of communism” (Korzeniewicz 2000: 43; also 42–44). Thus, the
specter of Bolshevism activated inferential heuristics and asymmetrical
loss aversion even across the Atlantic Ocean.
Interestingly, however, the violent backlash against left-wingers’ pre-
cipitous emulation efforts rarely destroyed democracy. Instead, status-
quo defenders’ easy and definitive defeat of revolutionary uprisings
helped to give many democracies a temporary lease on life. Autocracy
only emerged where communists had managed to occupy national power,
namely in Hungary (1919), and where leftist challenges were severe and
persistent and the resulting confrontation turned particularly raw, namely
in Italy (1922; see Gentile 2012). Interestingly, the specific way in which
right-wingers suppressed this radicalism – through military conquest in
Hungary, yet paramilitary violence wielded by Benito Mussolini’s newly
rising fascist movement in Italy – then shaped the type of dictatorship that
the winners installed. Hungary fell under top-down, de-mobilizational
authoritarianism, whereas Italy slid into mobilizational totalitarianism.
Because these different forms of autocracy presaged a crucial gulf in
the interwar reverse wave and because Italian fascism turned into a
hugely influential model, this chapter’s second half examines these two
cases in depth.

     

   

Inferential Heuristics and the Fears of Status-Quo Defenders

The repressive orgies of counterrevolutionaries were driven by the deter-
rent effect of the Soviet precedent, which caused immense fear, initially
bordering on panic. Due to cognitive inferences derived from Lenin’s
104 The Suppression of Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

triumph, right-wing and centrist forces, which had the most to lose from a
radical-left revolution, believed that communist imitation efforts had
good chances of success. But the resulting anxiety was excessive and
superseded rational considerations. As scholars highlight, “there was no
close correlation between the actual size of the revolutionary threat and
the fear of Bolshevism” (Gerwarth and Horne 2012a: 44).
In Germany, for instance, “even if the actual threat of a Bolshevik
revolution . . . was minimal, the perception was very different indeed”
(Gerwarth and Horne 2012a: 42). Benjamin Ziemann (2011: 391)
bemoans the “hysterical reaction of a bourgeois public, which perceived
Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht as the trailblazers of an imminent
Bolshevist revolution,” although their Spartakus League clearly lacked
the requisite strength to repeat Lenin’s seizure of power. Wehler (2010:
206–7) also highlights how exaggerated the widespread “fear of a ‘red
toppling’” of the societal order was by emphasizing the weakness “of the
German Communists . . . a tiny, internally divided splinter grouping
suffering from deep infighting and lacking a program and a strategy. . . .
Given the constellation of power of those years, the Communists had not
even the breath of a chance of success . . . Under the prevailing balance
of forces, there was no risk of a serious danger of Bolshevism that
the minuscule sect of left radicals who looked up to the Soviets could
have posed.”
Indeed, anxiety about an imminent radical takeover was widespread
across Europe. In Hungary, for instance, Admiral Miklós Horthy ([1953]
2011: 95) foresaw that the liberal revolution of late 1918 would “slide
down the slope to Bolshevist chaos.” In the Netherlands, there was
considerable “fear . . . that revolution would not stop at the German
border”; therefore, “many authorities were exceedingly nervous” (Blom
2006: 428). And in Sweden, “the wave of revolution in Russia frightened
the forces of order everywhere” (Scott 1988: 477). Even in England, a
general worried in January 1919 that an unruly “soldiers’ delegation bore
a dangerous resemblance to a Soviet” (reported in Read 2008: 58).
Fears of Bolshevist contagion were particularly common and intense in
Germany, the prime target of revolutionary emulation efforts. Centrist
historian Friedrich Runkel (1919: v), for instance, believed that through
the Spartakus Uprising, “a radical minority wanted to erect a proletarian
dictatorship” (Runkel 1919: 146). This eyewitness saw “everywhere the
flames of Communist agitation lapping up” and reported as “a certain
fact . . . that the Russian Soviet government supplied the left-radical
group . . . with money and weapons” (Runkel 1919: 174, 202). Harry
 Cognitive Mechanisms and the Russian Revolution 105

Kessler, a left-liberal aristocrat, dreaded “the wave of Bolshevism surging

in from the East,” regarded “the catastrophe of a bloody Bolshevism” as
likely, and saw a serious risk that “the Bolsheviks,” and “with them the
Red terror, gains the day” (Kessler 1999: 52, 84, and 9, respectively).
Similarly, “Nobel Laureate Thomas Mann, normally not an alarmist,
feared that a Communist coup d’état in Berlin was imminent . . . and that
the revolution in Vienna threatened to ‘become anarchy and Bolshevism’”
(reported in Gerwarth and Horne 2012a: 44).
The depth and breadth of these fears became evident in the popula-
tion’s relief and enthusiasm after the suppression of communist emulation
efforts. After the defeat of the Spartakus Uprising, for instance, an obser-
ver reported: “Great joy among the middle-class public” (cited in
Gerwarth 2018: 216). More vividly, a teacher noted in his diary during
Munich’s “liberation” from the extremist council republic: “10:20 am. At
this moment, loud hoorays induce me to go to the window. What is going
on? A soldier of the governmental troops . . . arrives . . . followed by an
innumerable crowd. Everybody shouts, ‘Hooray!’ ‘Bravo!’ People wave
their handkerchiefs, everybody looks out their windows, applauds, the
excitement could not be bigger” (reprinted in Schmolze 1978: 362).
Similarly, a university lecturer claimed in a contemporary newspaper
article, “nine tenths of Munich greeted the liberators with jubilation”
(Klemperer 2015: 168; similarly 161–62, 165). This widespread sense of
relief, which another witness confirms (Schmolze 1978: 363), demon-
strates the pall that revolution had cast over good parts of the population.

The Sway of Cognitive Mechanisms over Center-Left Organizations

Interestingly, the perceptions of grave danger arising from radical leftists’
isomorphic emulation efforts were not confined to right-wing and centrist
sectors, but extended to social democracy as well. Soon after Russia’s
October Revolution, when information was sparse and uncertainty ran
high, cognitive shortcuts held strong sway even over the officials of broad-
based organizations, including the leaders of social-democratic parties.
Although, in principle, pluralistic organizations provide for better infor-
mation access and internal deliberations, under the chaotic conditions of
1918/19 social-democratic leaders were also affected by the heuristics of
availability and representativeness. Consequently, their political rational-
ity was bounded, though less tightly than the perceptions and decisions of
common people and unorganized crowds. Even organizational leaders
106 The Suppression of Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

displayed distortions in judgment that shaped their actions and reactions.

These “least likely cases” demonstrate the strength of cognitive shortcuts.
Accordingly, although German Social Democracy was probably the
best-organized party in all of Europe, many prominent politicians per-
ceived Bolshevism’s spread as a significant risk (see recently Jones 2016:
78–79, 83–84). SPD leader Philipp Scheidemann often highlighted this
danger (Scheidemann 1929, vol. 2: 225, 243–46, 262–63, 279–84,
291–93; cf. Von Baden 1927: 580). When party president Friedrich
Ebert assumed government power, Scheidemann promised the outgoing
Imperial Chancellor that “my party will take care that Germany will be
spared Bolshevism” (reported by Müller-Franken 1928: 78).
Consequently, Scheidemann firmly backed the armed suppression of the
Spartakus Uprising. In his conviction, expressed with the subjective cer-
tainty typical of the representativeness heuristic, the government “had to
try to hold on to their authority . . . because otherwise Bolshevism would,
as sure as fate, have swamped the German people” (Scheidemann 1929,
vol. 2: 293, my emphasis). In a leaflet distributed during this fierce
conflict, SPD politicians presented the options starkly, namely:
“Freedom, not terror. Democracy, not dictatorship. German socialism,
not Russian Bolshevism” (quoted in Müller 1926: 78–79).
In the same vein, Chancellor Ebert exhorted: “The German workers
should look at [Bolshevist] Russia and be warned!” and rejected the
“putschist [armed-revolutionary] tactics” of proto-communists (Ebert
1926, vol. 2: 123; similarly 76). Another SPD leader accused left-wing
socialists of advocating the “slavish imitation of Russian methods”
(Müller-Franken 1928: 66). Gustav Noske (1920: 55), who spearheaded
the infamous crackdown against the Spartakus Uprising, saw as one of his
two main goals the “prevention of the [imminent] chaos” arising from
“the transfer of Russian Bolshevism to Germany. The repercussions of the
council system on Germany, however, were bound to be infinitely more
destructive than they had – as a deterrent example – become obvious in
Russia” (Noske 1920: 61). Similarly, the social-democratic newspaper
Vorwärts was full of horror stories about Soviet Russia and dire warnings
against radical-left attempts to imitate the Bolshevist approach in
Germany (Merz 1995: chap. 9).
Theorist Eduard Bernstein, who elaborated the revisionist strategy
effectively followed by the SPD (Berman 2006: 14–16, 35–44), called
the Spartakists “diligent pupils of the Russian Bolshevists” (Bernstein
[1921] 1998: 106). In his view, Karl Liebknecht “worked according to
the Bolshevist model and probably with Bolshevist support” (Bernstein
 Cognitive Mechanisms and the Russian Revolution 107

[1921] 1998: 179). Indeed, Bernstein claimed “that agents of the

[Russian] Bolshevists had direct involvement in all of these actions,”
namely the violent protests of 1918/19 (Bernstein [1921] 1998: 195).
He charged that “the Bolshevist government of Russia was spending
millions for the purpose of putting Germany in a state of inner
decomposition, which should make possible the proclamation of a
council republic in line with its model” (Bernstein [1921] 1998: 182;
see also 202).
In general, mainstream social democracy saw the biggest menace to
Germany’s nascent democracy arise from “Bolshevist agitation” (Hoegner
1979: 36). They felt compelled to fight a difficult “defensive struggle”
against radical socialists and communists, “unless we wanted to . . . let the
Bolshevist chaos take over” (Keil 1947: 129–30; similarly Müller-Franken
1928: 13, 75). Similarly, a Bavarian SPD politician highlighted “the victory
of Social Democracy over Bolshevism.” In his view, “the world-historically
significant event of the [social-democratic vs. radical-leftist] struggles of the
year 1919 was to keep Bolshevism far away from German territory”
(Hoegner 1979: 44 and 39, respectively). An SPD delegate in Germany’s
constituent assembly summed up the party’s important accomplishment,
“that the German revolution did not follow the example of the Russian”
(quoted in Matthias 1972: 115; see also Dittmann 1995: 557).
Historical experts commonly bemoan the unreasonable, exaggerated
threat perceptions of the mainstream left. Carsten (1988: 174) frowns
that “the moderate Social Democrats . . . grossly overestimated the radic-
alism” of the workers and soldiers’ councils emerging in Germany’s
November Revolution of 1918. Geyer (2010: 218–19) concurs: “That
the majority Social Democrats . . . could fall prey to the idea of an acute
Bolshevist threat indicates a drastic restriction of their capacity for valid
perceptions.” Similarly, Winkler (2000: 390) judges that “for the excesses
of the counter-violence . . . [that Social Democracy applied against
communists] there was no justification.”
In sum, even the SPD suffered the distortionary effects of inferential
heuristics. Social democrats’ excessive sense of peril was noteworthy,
given the party’s better information processing capacity and its long-
standing political experience, which turn it into a “least likely case” for
biases resulting from cognitive shortcuts. Yet during the exceptional
uncertainty prevailing soon after the Bolshevik revolution and immedi-
ately following the German Empire’s collapse (eyewitness accounts in
Kessler 1999: 8, 10, 40, 53, 56), even center-left organizational leaders
overestimated the replicability of Lenin’s success.
108 The Suppression of Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

  

   
Due to the mechanisms of bounded rationality, a wide range of estab-
lished political forces across Europe concluded from the Bolshevik prece-
dent that radicals had good chances of grabbing power. Therefore, these
status-quo defenders cooperated in squashing extremists’ hyperactive
rebellions with excessive force. Pervasive fear and asymmetrical loss
aversion triggered a disproportionate reaction, which brought surprising
brutality (Nettl 1969: 443-61; Wehler 2010: 206–9, 398–99).
Establishment forces acknowledged their fear-driven determination to
crack down hard. As a striking example, when moderate Social
Democrat Gustav Noske faced the Spartakus Uprising, he said,
“Someone needs to become the bloodhound,2 I do not shy away
from this responsibility” (Noske 1920: 68). For these reasons, radicals’
use of violence, which was fairly limited and targeted, drew massive
repression that was much more extensive, indiscriminate, and cruel
(Kershaw 2015: 107).3
During the Hungarian Soviet Republic, for example, red terror cost
about 500 lives (Gioielli 2015: 54), whereas the white terror unleashed
after Béla Kun’s eviction brought about 1,500–2,000 killings (Hanebrink
2006: 88, n. 24; Bodó 2011: 133, n. 1); 75,000 additional people suffered
imprisonment (Tökés 1967: 214–15). Similarly, in the Finnish civil war,
Reds murdered 1,649 compatriots, but Whites slaughtered 8,380 people –
outside of battle! This death toll amounts to 0.97 and 4.55 per thousand
of the population.4 Historians highlight the usage of “particularly brutal
forms of violence” and the “rapid escalation of extreme violence in a
country with strong civic institutions” (Haapala and Tikka 2012: 84).
Hungary also saw remarkable cruelty (Gioielli 2015: 76–77, 95–100).
The Baltic wars of national liberation resembled the uncontrolled mass
slaughter, rape, and pillage of the infamous Thirty Years’ War of
1618–48, exposing the civilian population to “brutal reprisals” (Von
Rauch 1995: 67).

2
In 1918/19, radical leftists commonly insulted SPD leaders with this term (see, e.g., Müller
1926: 19, 41; Scheidemann 1929, vol. 2: 280).
3
What exacerbated this asymmetry was the stark bias of the justice system, especially in
Germany, which punished left-wing violence harshly while treating right-wing coup
makers and assassins with scandalous leniency (Neumann 1984: 44–48).
4
Arosalo (1998: 148); see also Alapuro (1988: 176–77, 201–2); Haapala and Tikka (2012:
82–83); and for details Smith (1958: 27, 34, 40, 55–56, 72, 82–84, 88–91).
 The Suppression of Isomorphic Emulation Efforts 109

Remarkably, excessive crackdowns were not confined to Europe, but

happened in the Americas as well. In faraway Argentina, for instance,
labor strikes and anarchist stirrings provoked a “tragic week” of severe
repression in January 1919, which entailed large numbers of killings
(Rock and dos Santos 1971: 178–83, 213). This outburst of counter-
revolutionary violence was prompted by fears of “the imminence of a
government of soviets due to social revolution” (Silva 2011: 109; see also
102–3, 112, 185), which left-wing radicals reinforced by proclaiming
solidarity with the Russian Revolution and Berlin’s Spartakus Uprising
(Silva 2011: 116, 198; see also Albert 1988: 252, 266). Yet despite this
imprudent rhetoric, the concerns of status-quo defenders were far-fetched
and “totally unfounded” (Devoto 2005: 155); no revolution was in fact
planned, and this spontaneous labor mobilization was not led by com-
munists. Nevertheless, “white terror” brutally squashed the strikes and
protests (Silva 2011: 197–99, 225, 235, 243–44).
Even the United States, where innate, unshakeable commitment to
liberalism creates strong immunity to communism (Hartz 1955), experi-
enced a serious “red scare” in 1919. As revolutionary contagion from
Europe fomented comparatively radical demand-making by workers and
other disadvantaged groupings, fear, if not panic, spread among establish-
ment sectors. Business and the government, at the national and state level,
therefore reacted with great intransigence and employed considerable
repression (Read 2008: 51–55, 92, 99–102, 183–91, 213–27, 255–65,
304–8, 313–17).
The most notorious and consequential overreaction to communism
occurred in Germany. Because, with the defeat in WWI, the military
was crumbling and state authority became precarious, high uncertainty
reigned. In this fluid setting, even the organizational leaders of social
democracy fell under the sway of cognitive shortcuts. Intense loss aver-
sion induced them to crack down hard on the extreme left. Communist
insurrections evoked exaggerated fears and therefore drew disproportion-
ate countermeasures. While radicals incessantly spearheaded noisy street
protests and attempted armed uprisings at any apparent opportunity,
their effective power bases were minimal. After all, the SPD and its trade
union wing encapsulated large segments of the working class in discip-
lined organizations. Consequently, the revolutionary left commanded
only limited support and lacked realistic chances of success.
But fears of communism prompted harsh responses to extremist initia-
tives, such as the Spartakus Uprising and the council republics in Bremen
and Munich. As Chapter 3 mentioned, the spontaneous, haphazard
110 The Suppression of Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

assault on the social-democratic government in Berlin was running out of

steam after the SPD and its unions mobilized their mass base. This
political victory could have resolved the conflict without additional
bloodshed. Yet the specter of Bolshevism induced the government to have
remaining army units and new Freikorps retake the city and shell the
bulwarks of diehard militants. This military crackdown entailed numer-
ous excesses and atrocities, especially the assassination of Spartakus
leaders Luxemburg and Liebknecht, which occurred days after the upris-
ing’s suppression. These outrages were perpetrated mainly by government
troops, yet also by the incensed population; a mob even tried to lynch one
of Liebknecht’s teenage sons (chilling eyewitness account in Kessler 1999:
52–53). Ample sources document these horrific violations,5 which even
government leaders do not deny (Noske 1920: 72–76; Müller-Franken
1928: 268–72).6
A similarly tragic sequence of events played out shortly thereafter in
Bremen, where inspiration from the Spartakus Uprising stimulated the
declaration of a council republic and “the dictatorship of the proletariat.”
This radical experiment quickly suffered financial strangulation, however.
Moreover, military forces sent by the national government encircled the
rebellious city and thus deprived the extremist adventure of any viability,
as even its protagonists recognized. Yet although the radicals offered to
capitulate under certain guarantees (Kuckuk 2010: 76, 78), the SPD
leadership insisted on unconditional surrender – and had Bremen occu-
pied by force. Seventy people died in these “unnecessary bloody clashes”
(Mommsen 2016: 60).7
Atrocities were especially rife in the re-conquest of Munich, because in
a last desperate move, a communist leader of the council republic had
ordered the execution of ten upper-class hostages. This senseless red
terror, which according to local resident Thomas Mann aroused “tremen-
dous rage among the bourgeois population” (diary entry quoted in
Gerwarth 2018: 248; similarly Klemperer 2015: 159–63), provoked a

5
See e.g., Müller (1926: 62–68, 70); Kessler (1999: 83–90); recent comprehensive analysis
in Jones (2016: 5, 9, 210–19, 233–38).
6
The SPD leadership was shocked and dismayed at these atrocities, especially Liebknecht’s
and Luxemburg’s murders, which soiled and devalued its victory over the uprising. As
Müller-Franken (1928: 272) reports, “I have rarely seen Ebert so upset” (very similarly
Scheidemann 1929, vol. 2: 294–95 about his own and Ebert’s reaction).
7
Another outburst of counterrevolutionary violence occurred in Berlin in March 1919,
brutally suppressing a renewed left-wing uprising and causing over 1,000 deaths (see
recently Jones 2016: chap. 7).
 The Political Consequences of Counterrevolutionary Violence 111

paroxysm of white terror. The bloody street fighting, which according to

Bernstein ([1921] 1998: 217) caused heavy losses among government
troops and Freikorps as well, killed about 600 people (Schmolze 1978:
368–75, 378–82). Even worse, the winners thereafter used mass execu-
tions to eliminate a good part of the council republic’s leadership and put
thousands of their supporters on trial (Klemperer 2015: 177, 184; Jones
2016: chap. 8; Gerwarth 2018: 245–46).

   

 
Thus, during the heightened uncertainty created by the stunning Russian
Revolution and under the impression of cognitive shortcuts, even social
democracy overreacted to leftist imitation attempts and bloodied its
hands, often after victory had already been secured; therefore, these
outbursts of violence went beyond conventionally rational calculations.
Worse even in broader political terms, and with ominous consequences
for later regime developments, the SPD felt compelled to make problem-
atic alliances with reactionary forces, such as the remainder of the Kaiser’s
military and freshly formed militias, the infamous Freikorps (Bernstein
[1921] 1998: 182, 201–2, 222; Bassler 1973: 245–47). The perceived
need to accommodate both these mainstays of the old imperial order and
the seeds of later extreme-right movements exacted significant costs in
hindering a more decisive break with the authoritarian past and a clean
start for the new democracy. Due to these deviations from full political
rationality, the Weimar Republic suffered from birth defects that crippled
it from the beginning and helped to bring about its later downfall.8
These uncouth and compromising alliances were driven by fear of
radical-leftist mobilization, which Karl Liebknecht, in particular, sought
to foment with his declaration of a German Socialist Republic on the very
day when the Kaiser fell and revolution erupted in Berlin. Consequently,
the very next day, provisional chancellor Friedrich Ebert (SPD) forged an
agreement with the old military leadership to cooperate in stabilizing the
fluid situation and combating the risk of Bolshevism (see recently
Gerwarth 2018: 193–94). This pact was important in securing
Germany’s transition to parliamentary democracy through the quick
convocation of a constituent assembly. Charting this representative-

8
Bernstein ([1921] 1998: 202) recognized these deleterious consequences quickly, while
Moore (1978: chap. 11) assessed them in particular depth.
112 The Suppression of Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

electoral path effectively marginalized the mushrooming workers’ and

soldiers’ councils that sprouted up in imitation of the Soviet model
(Luxemburg 1970: 204–5; Dittmann 1995: 508, 566, 579, 587; see also
Kolb 1979: 95).
But the serious downside of this collaboration of the reformist left with
the imperial military (Reichswehr) was that plans for thoroughly restruc-
turing the armed forces and subjecting them to effective civilian control
were quickly shelved (Bracher [1955] 1978: 215–26; Carsten 1988:
72–74).9 After all, the army leadership conditioned its support for the
precarious government headed by social democracy, which the generals
had long distrusted, on keeping the military’s command structure intact.
Deep-reaching reform was therefore out of the question.
As a result, the military turned into an autonomous “state within the
state,” an alien relic of the conservative Kaiserreich in the new progressive
republic (Carsten 1988: 299; Wehler 2010: 415–19). Consequently, the
democratic governments could never fully rely on their incongruous ally.
While energetically combating the radical left, the military was unwilling
to suppress equivalent challenges from the right, as army leader Hans von
Seeckt coolly indicated when facing a dangerous coup attempt (Kapp
Putsch) in 1920. In this crisis situation, von Seeckt insisted on non-
intervention with the notorious line, “Reichswehr does not shoot at
Reichswehr” (Wehler 2010: 407). Deprived of military backing, the
civilian government had no option but to draw on its massive labor
support and declare a general strike, which soon asphyxiated the uprising.
Worse even was Social Democracy’s collaboration with the new
Freikorps, militant hordes of former soldiers brutalized by four years of
total war and alienated from civilian life. Many of these paramilitary
adventurers had fought on the killing fields of the Baltics and Eastern
Europe that the collapse of Imperial Russia had opened up. In these
utterly lawless areas, where a nightmarish variety of ideological move-
ments, ethnic groupings, and private armies battled each other to annihi-
lation, these hardened fighters had engaged in orgies of destruction and
unspeakable atrocities (Gerwarth and Horne 2012b; Gerwarth 2016).
Because in 1918/19, the war-weary army melted away and left the provi-
sional government denuded of protection, the Ebert administration con-
fronted the Spartakus Uprising by convoking Freikorps. And because the
radical left kept spearheading many subsequent uprisings across the

9
For the contrast with Austria, where military reform did go forward, see Carsten (1988:
chap. 3).
 The Political Consequences of Counterrevolutionary Violence 113

country, the new democracy continued to use the new paramilitary for-
mations for counterrevolutionary repression. Therefore, these fervently
anti-communist and particularly cruel forces for years had fairly free rein,
before the army finally flushed them out in the mid-1920s (Bracher [1955]
1978: 228).
Besides violating human rights and trampling the rule of law, the many
atrocities committed by Freikorps against revolutionary emulation efforts
deepened the gulf among the German left and forestalled any cooperation
between social democrats and communists (Gerwarth 2018: 220). This
lasting enmity came to haunt both forces during the later rise of National
Socialism, when the German Communist Party (KPD) did not prioritize
the fight against this most dangerous enemy; instead, the party targeted its
fiercest attacks against what it denounced as the “social fascists” of the
SPD. This mistargeted hostility facilitated the political advance of German
fascism and its eventual takeover of the government.
Tragically, while aggravating the disunity among the left, Social
Democracy’s determined and unnecessarily brutal suppression of the
radical left did not endear the party to the “bourgeois” center and
center-right. This segment of the political spectrum always maintained
its ideological distrust of the officially Marxist SPD, reinforced by cultural
distance from the proletarian milieu. Therefore, social democracy did not
benefit from its counterrevolutionary victories by winning new support.
Instead, the insurrectionary hyper-activism of the extremist left pro-
voked a process of polarization that strengthened the right at the expense
of the center and center-left. This backlash, driven by obsessive fear of
communism, is clearly visible at the local and regional level. After all, the
sites of ultra-leftist uprisings turned into seedbeds for antidemocratic
right-wingers, in Germany and across Europe. It is no coincidence that
the first authoritarian regime installed during the interwar years emerged
in Hungary, which had suffered through a chaotic Soviet Republic in
1919. Similarly, Hitler made his first attempt at seizing power in 1923 in
Munich, a city still traumatized by the disastrous revolutionary experi-
ments of 1919. And Benito Mussolini’s fascist movement gathered its
strength in Italy’s North, which had been most affected by the labor
strikes and agrarian unrest of the “red biennium” of 1919–20, when the
country seemed to teeter on the verge of revolution (Sassoon 2007:
24–25). Due to loss aversion, far-left challenges prompted reactions of
far greater magnitude. Revolution provoked counterrevolution, and the
resulting polarization had a lasting impact on the areas most directly
affected by these struggles.
114 The Suppression of Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

Beyond the regions directly scarred by the left’s revolutionary adven-

tures, the resulting polarization also had crucial repercussions at the
national level. In Germany, for instance, the fierce conflicts provoked by
radical attempts to follow in Lenin’s footsteps caused both the SPD and
the left-liberal German Democratic Party to lose large vote shares in the
parliamentary elections of 1920 already (Gerwarth 2018: 288). This
stunning defeat cost the main democratic forces their majority, while
benefiting semi-loyal or openly disloyal groupings, both on the right
and the radical left (Carsten 1988: 300; Winkler 2000: 415–16).
Consequently, the Weimar Republic quickly came to stand on precarious
political ground, lacking a firm base of support.
In sum, the incessant revolutionary stirrings of Lenin’s disciples and the
fear-driven counterrevolutionary response of establishment forces got
Germany’s new democracy off to a rocky start and hindered its consoli-
dation in subsequent years. Due to cognitive shortcuts and the scary
inferences derived from the Bolshevist Revolution, reformist parties made
excessive concessions to reactionary forces, especially the old military and
new Freikorps. As the analysis of the German case in Chapter 6 explains,
the unreformed military then played an important role in the country’s
authoritarian turn from the late 1920s onward, which set the stage for the
eventual descent into fascism.
It is important to stress, however, that the dangerous legacies of these
early conflicts did not condemn the new democracy to death. A number of
fledgling regimes have managed to overcome serious birth defects, as the
case of Finland after its violent civil war shows. There, the brutal repres-
sion of the radical left in 1918 did not preclude the emergence of a
functioning democracy in the 1920s (Alapuro 1988: 204–8), which then
managed to sustain itself against a powerful fascist upsurge in the early
1930s (Siaroff 1999; Capoccia 2005: chap. 6; see Chapter 9). Similarly,
after the “third wave of democratization,” Chile consolidated a well-
functioning democracy in the 1990s despite tight institutional limitations
imposed by the outgoing military dictatorship. Thus, serious initial prob-
lems and lasting political constraints are not necessarily fatal for a new
civilian competitive regime.
As regards the Weimar Republic, its eventual descent into Nazi des-
potism does not prove the inherent unviability of the fairly progressive
regime inaugurated with the ambitious constitution of 1919 (see Orlow
1982 and recently Gerwarth 2018: 10–27). Retrospective determinism
lacks theoretical validity. After all, the new democracy developed consid-
erable vibrancy (Weitz 2007) and made significant advances toward
 The Infrequency of Autocratic Imposition 115

stability from 1924 onward. As explained in Chapter 6, it took new

challenges, especially the exogenous shock of the Great Depression, to
make the risks created by the counterrevolutionary birth defects truly
fatal.

    

    
Extremist attempts to imitate Lenin’s success and their brutal suppression
brought enormous turmoil and violence to a number of Central and East
European countries, and the problematic legacies of these conflicts
weakened new democracies. Yet despite the fierceness of the counter-
revolutionary backlash, it is noteworthy that these radical challenges
rarely provoked the installation of reactionary dictatorships (Kershaw
2015: 133–34). Instead, however battered, liberal democracy survived
in many countries after this rash of early conflicts. This salutary outcome
prevailed despite repeated communist uprisings in Germany, despite fierce
civil wars in Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania, despite some radical
attempts in Austria and lesser stirrings in the Netherlands and
Switzerland, and despite an outburst of violence in Argentina.
Only in two countries did the anti-communist backlash directly bring
the imposition of autocracy. Hungary fell to authoritarian rule immedi-
ately after the defeat of the Soviet Republic in 1919; and after rising
through violent combat against widespread left-wing contention, Italian
fascism came to power in 1922 and established a totalitarian dictatorship
thereafter. Given the intense fears of communism that gripped many
status-quo defenders immediately after WWI, this infrequent installation
of dictatorship is noteworthy. Why this variation in regime outcomes,
despite the common challenge arising from radicals’ isomorphic emula-
tion efforts?
What can not explain the divergence in political paths is external
pressure from Western great powers, which after WWI promoted liberal
pluralism and insisted on democracy as a precondition for recognizing the
many new states emerging in Central and Eastern Europe. In particular,
the reactionary Hungarian leaders who imposed authoritarianism after
the (self-)destruction of the Soviet Republic also faced this conditionality
(Horthy [1953] 2011: 101–2, 107–8, 123; see Lorman 2006: 16). Yet
while these fervent counterrevolutionaries backed off from their initial
plans to create an open military dictatorship (Rothschild 1974: 152–53;
Ormos 2007: 72–76), they managed to engineer a non-democratic regime
116 The Suppression of Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

despite French and British pressure. They simply hid the real power
concentration behind an electoral, semi-liberal façade, while using
manipulation, intimidation, and repression to distort and effectively
suspend democratic mechanisms (Janos 1982: 212–13, 216, 224;
Payne 1995: 132, 268; Mann 2004: 241). In this sneaky way, they
forged an early example of “competitive authoritarianism” (Levitsky
and Way 2010).
Prior experience with liberal and electoral institutions was not decisive
either. Certainly, Finland had benefited from “the presence of democratic
norms and institutions” since the nineteenth century (Kissane 2004: 969;
see recently Orzoff 2016: 264). Yet although it had lived under a com-
petitive regime since unification in 1861, Italy suffered a dramatic auto-
cratic regression. Conversely, the Baltic countries lacked a liberal
background, but avoided the immediate installation of authoritarianism;
indeed, Estonia and Latvia maintained hyper-parliamentary regimes until
1934. Thus, the past did not reliably shape the post–WWI era.

The Impact of Revolutionary Threat on Regime Trajectories

While great power influence and historical experience do not provide
convincing explanations, perceptions of revolutionary danger mediated
by cognitive mechanisms can explain the differences in regime trajector-
ies. As this study shows, the specter of communist diffusion, fueled by the
representativeness heuristic, activated disproportionate loss aversion and
provoked defensive counter-diffusion. Accordingly, it was decisive how
this action-reaction dynamic played out in each case. How acute was the
perceived risk of communist revolution? And how high was status-quo
defenders’ capacity for resistance? Interestingly, this defensive resilience
depended mainly on political – not military – factors. Where mainstream
political parties had organizational density and the state commanded
institutional strength, left-wing extremism had low chances of success.
Moreover, where the struggle against communism intersected with the
effort to achieve national independence, as in the Baltic States and
Finland, surging nationalism weakened the radical left. Either one of these
factors immunized polities against future infection by the Bolshevist virus
and thus sustained the institution and survival of liberal democracy.
As regards the severity of the perceived threat, extremist uprisings,
inspired by distortionary shortcuts, were haphazard and unrealistic.
Once the broad phalanx of status-quo defenders employed massive,
targeted coercion, these precipitous efforts uniformly suffered defeat.
 The Infrequency of Autocratic Imposition 117

After these decisive victories, the initial panic of establishment sectors

gradually subsided. Because communists lost so clearly, anti-communists
concluded that the danger had passed. Regular, institutional politics
could now resolve remaining problems and conflicts. Therefore, liberal
pluralism seemed to hold low risk. Once the nightmare of a surprisingly
savage civil war had ended, Finland, for instance, quickly instituted a
functioning democracy. Former enemies now faced each other in the
electoral arena and advanced their contending interests and ideologies
with civil means. For these reasons, liberal democracy emerged in most
countries that had initially suffered radical attempts to follow Lenin’s
footsteps.
While everywhere isomorphic imitation efforts quickly failed, they did,
however, vary in intensity across countries. From the center of Europe
toward the northwest, radical adventures were so impulsive and ill-
prepared that they caused only minor disturbances. For instance, the
general strike in Switzerland and “Troelstra’s mistake” (Blom 2006:
428) in the Netherlands proved episodic; similarly, communist plots in
Austria, fomented by emissaries of Hungary’s Soviet Republic, were
aborted before they could erupt (Carsten 1988: 230–38). These rash
moves backfired by discrediting their initiators and deterring further
challenges. They did not shake confidence in liberal pluralism, but on
the contrary confirmed widespread democratic commitment among main-
stream forces. The same outcome prevailed after many local challenges in
Germany, e.g., those stimulated by the Spartakus Uprising. While radical
groupings in numerous cities made grandiloquent pronouncements and
undertook protest demonstrations and sympathy strikes, they did not
seriously push their ideological projects with armed force. Therefore, their
opponents did not feel compelled to resort to violence either. After some
maneuvering, the democratic forces prevailed, for instance in Hamburg
(Paschen 2008: 82–134).
In other instances, however, Bolshevist efforts to export communism
or local attempts to import the new creed posed much graver threats. As
examined in Chapter 3, in the Baltic States and Finland, the October
Revolution caused immediate spillover effects and ignited fierce, destruc-
tive civil wars. Moreover, in Hungary and Munich, extremists proclaimed
Soviet Republics and exercised dictatorial power for weeks or months.
Finally, in Italy, an intransigent, “maximalist” Socialist party and a
militant labor movement fomented numerous contentious strikes, factory
occupations, and land conflicts and seemed to create a serious danger of
revolution. These traumatic experiences gave rise to much deeper and
118 The Suppression of Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

more lasting threat perceptions. Predictably, scary extremist action pro-

voked calls for determined reaction.

The Defensive Capacities of Status-Quo Defenders

What proved crucial in the face of more serious far-left danger were the
defensive capacities of status-quo defenders. Two types of political factors
seemed to offer sufficient protection: Liberal democracy emerged where
mainstream parties had firm, broad-based organizations, or where
surging nationalism marginalized Bolshevist sympathizers as “foreign-
ers.” As regards political organization, social-democratic parties like the
German SPD, which encapsulated millions of workers in comprehensive
party and union networks (Bartolini 2000: chap. 6; Eley 2002), limited
political space for extremism and gave democracy a reasonably solid
foundation. While the SPD never won a majority of votes, it allied with
the equally well-organized Catholic Center and a more fluid left-liberal
party. In 1919, this Weimar Coalition was confident in its governing
capacity. At the same time, right-wing sectors that were skeptical or
hostile to democracy knew after the Kaiserreich’s recent collapse that
they could not govern against the SPD and its allies, nor easily suppress
them. Organizationally based resilience thus sustained national-level dem-
ocracy despite continuing radical challenges at the local and regional
level. Institutional strength also proved important in Argentina, where
the relatively well-organized Radical Civic Union managed to maintain
democracy after the shocking explosion of violence in the “tragic week”
of early 1919 (Rock and dos Santos 1971; Silva 2011).
Where mainstream parties commanded organizational strength and
broad support, democracy actually was a useful mechanism for keeping
surviving radicals sidelined and ineffectual. After all, given the asymmet-
rical valuation of gains vs. losses, there were few extremists, whereas the
variety of moderate forces held a large, often overwhelming majority.
Therefore, elections promised to certify convincingly what widespread
political backing the establishment sectors enjoyed; by contrast, their
meager vote results would reveal that communist appeals to “the working
class” largely fell on deaf ears. In elections, thus, disproportionate loss
aversion had salutary political consequences. Bounded rationality helped
to give mainstream forces good reasons to trust in the viability of liberal
democracy and its capacity to marginalize far-left challengers.
Because extremist emulation efforts were inspired, stimulated, and
frequently supported by Russian Communism, nationalism also served
 The Infrequency of Autocratic Imposition 119

as a powerful defensive shield. This protective mechanism had special

strength where fairly cohesive ethnic groupings sought to achieve inde-
pendence from the nascent Soviet Union. In Finland and the Baltics,
bloody civil wars between left-wing radicals and status-quo defenders
coincided with the struggle for national sovereignty. Because the extrem-
ists who took up arms counted on Bolshevist help and sought to extend
the socialist world revolution initiated by Lenin,10 their rightist and
centrist enemies could enlist nationalism: They de-legitimated their foes
as alien, Russian agents (Balkelis 2012: 127–29; Haapala and Tikka
2012: 74–75).
In Estonia, for instance, “social revolution in its Soviet form, it
appeared, was an imported [type of rule] that did not hide its ‘foreign’
nature” (Brüggemann 2006: 220; similarly 222; see also Von Rauch
1995: 35, 56; Plakans 2011: 301). In Finland, communism was widely
seen as an “evil, Russian-inspired doctrine”; consequently, “outrage . . .
united Finnish- and Swedish-speaking ‘whites’ alike in their condemna-
tion of the impious, treacherous ‘reds’ who pledged their allegiance to the
outlawed Finnish Communist party in Soviet Russia” (Kirby 2006:
169 and 168, respectively). Indeed, when the civil war started in
January 1918, the counterrevolutionaries called for a “fight against trai-
tors to the freedom of the Fatherland” (cited in Smith 1958: 37; see also
documents in Kirby 1975: 225, 230, 234, 241–42; and Alapuro 1988:
198–200; Luostarinen 1989: 128–30, 134).
After these “treasonous” radicals suffered defeat and their surviving
leaders revealed their true loyalties by escaping to the USSR (Hodgson
1967: 80–82, 111–12), the winners stood on firm political ground. The
combination of nationalism and anti-Bolshevism commanded widespread
support (Hamalainen 1979: 13–14, 117; Plakans 2011: 302), diminishing
the perceived risk of renewed extreme-left challenges. The outlawed
communists, who resumed political participation under innocuous labels,
gained only limited support and faced the constant threat of prosecution,
if not persecution (Vardys 1979: 328–29). For instance, soon after
Finland’s Socialist Workers’ Party, a front for clandestine communists,
won 14 percent of the vote in 1922, the government imprisoned its
parliamentary representatives and confiscated its party finances (Kirby

10
The “Estonian Workers’ Commune,” for instance, “expected the victory of world revo-
lution to be a matter of weeks rather than months” (Brüggemann 2006: 216). On the
Soviet idea that takeover of the Baltic States would carry the Bolshevist revolution to
Germany, see Von Rauch (1995: 51, 73).
120 The Suppression of Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

2006: 171–72; see also Capoccia 2005: 145–53). And when the Estonian
Communist Party, which had won 10 percent of parliamentary seats in
1923, “was brazenly arrogant to claim power by force,” its December
1924 coup quickly “floundered and was suppressed within hours. Its
political result was the collapse of the Communist party on the one hand
and the rebirth of Estonian national consensus on the other” (Vardys
1979: 329; details in Von Rauch 1995: 110–16).
Because the newly independent nations rejected Bolshevism and sup-
ported crackdowns against radical left-wingers, they could afford polit-
ical openness and liberty for the wide range of mainstream groupings. The
victors therefore instituted democratic regimes. After the bloody eradica-
tion of the initial imitators of Lenin’s Russia, the limited remaining threat
could be controlled with targeted repression and did not seem to require
the fortification of the political regime via autocratic rule. In the eyes of
crucial elites and the majority of the citizenry, the body politic had
sufficient immunity to allow for liberal democracy.
In sum, political party organization or nationalism, especially aversion
to Russia, offered a strong defense against Lenin’s disciples and thus
served as “sufficient conditions” that gave mainstream forces confidence
in their ability to block communism. Although the Baltic States, Finland,
and Germany faced serious or repeated attempts at revolutionary emula-
tion, the decisive defeat of these ill-planned adventures allowed for liberal
democracy. While the backlash to radical contention brought serious
human rights violations, the victory of targeted counterrevolution helped
to avoid the imposition of autocratic rule in many countries.

      

 

The Installation of Authoritarian Rule in Post-Revolutionary Hungary

Only in two cases did the “red years” of 1919–21 (Lindemann 1974)
usher in dark decades of dictatorship. In Hungary and Italy, the combin-
ation of particularly severe and sustained left-wing challenges and the
organizational weakness of mainstream political forces, especially on the
right half of the ideological spectrum, proved fatal. Moreover, national-
ism did not seem to guarantee reliable immunity either.
Hungary’s Soviet Republic ravaged the country for months, as
Chapter 3 analyzed. While the south of Finland also suffered under left-
wing revolutionaries in early 1918, their Magyar counterparts imposed a
 Autocratic Imposition 121

much more radical program, including the collectivization of agriculture

(Rothschild 1974: 147–48). Moreover, the communist-led Kun regime
employed worsening terror. Because these measures created heavy costs
for a wide range of sectors, they activated intense loss aversion and caused
a lasting trauma.
As communist domination in Hungary was significantly more painful
than in southern Finland, Magyar nationalism also offered much less of a
protective shield. Whereas the Finns won their independence against
Russia, Hungary was dismembered by its Slavic and Romanian neighbors
and the Western powers. Therefore, Soviet Russia actually looked like a
desirable ally against the hungry vultures ripping apart the Habsburg
carcass (Ormos 2007: 36–40). In fact, the desperate hope of averting this
national tragedy through Lenin’s military assistance had been one of the
main motives for installing the Soviet Republic in the first place (Tökes
1967: 132–35, 142–46). Thus, Hungarian nationalism lacked the anti-
Russian animus prevailing in Finland. And as the tensions and conflicts
with the rapacious neighbors persisted throughout the interwar years,
nationalism did not seem to offer reliable protection against risks eman-
ating from Russian Bolshevism.
Furthermore, Hungary’s political party system had low governing
capacity and the state lacked infrastructural power. The chaotic end of
WWI and the new nation’s territorial dismemberment pulverized the
liberal formations that first took the helm (Ormos 2007: 22–24, 31).
Traditionally, the socialist party had commanded considerable organiza-
tional strength (Rothschild 1974: 141), but its collaboration with Kun’s
disastrous Soviet Republic and the subsequent counterrevolutionary
repression left it in tatters. After the communists’ eviction, politics resem-
bled an organizational wasteland. What political force could have sus-
tained a liberal democracy? Instead, embittered reactionaries, who
themselves needed a great deal of foreign help,11 eventually occupied
the capital with military force and imposed an authoritarian regime.
The victorious right-wingers categorically rejected democracy and
depicted political liberalism as a foreign import inappropriate for
Hungary (Hanebrink 2006: 80–82, 118–20; see Bethlen 1925: 455). In
particular, they condemned the democratic revolution of late 1918 for
paving the way for the calamitous Soviet Republic (Dreisziger 1968: 23;
Gioielli 2015: 79–80). As later prime minister István Bethlen complained,

11
Romanian troops vanquished Hungary’s Soviet Republic; only after their withdrawal
mediated by France did Admiral Miklós Horthy’s right-wingers take over.
122 The Suppression of Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

“First came the [liberal] Károlyi Revolution with its own particular
défaitism, which infected the whole living organism of the nation and
reduced its power of resistance to a minimum; and this preparatory
artillery attack was followed . . . by its logical consequence – the ‘dictator-
ship of the proletariat’” (Bethlen 1925: 452; similarly Horthy [1953]
2011: 95). Because in their eyes, democracy inevitably led to communism,
reactionaries distrusted civilian competitive rule and installed an authori-
tarian regime (Janos 1982: 235).
Yet because the Western powers insisted on democratic procedures as
a precondition for signing the peace that Hungary desperately needed
(Horthy [1953] 2011: 101–2, 107–8, 123), the counterrevolutionary
regime covered its authoritarian core with semi-liberal and electoral
formalities. In the terminology of contemporary political science,
Admiral Horthy and his military friends thus created a competitive-
authoritarian regime, which allowed some opposition forces to operate,
but fraudulently engineered electoral victories for official candidates.12 In
sum, for a double reason, namely a traumatic communist experiment and
the weak organizational capacity of liberal democratic forces, Hungary
was the first European country in which left-wing diffusion brought
reactionary counter-diffusion that ushered in an autocratic regime.
Thus, the interactive approach advanced in this study explains the
unusually early establishment of authoritarianism in Budapest.

The Installation of Fascist Rule in Pre-Revolutionary Italy

If in Hungary months of communist dictatorship activated powerful loss
aversion and stoked the backlash toward reactionary autocracy, then in
Italy particularly widespread, persistent, and contentious left-wing chal-
lenges paved the way for the emergence of fascism and its quick rise to
power (Bosworth 2002: 133, 138–40, 149; Bermeo 2003: 27–28). After
the Soviet Republic in Budapest had suffered military defeat, reactionary
elites sought to secure the sociopolitical order through top-down state-
based control and enforced de-politicization via a fairly traditional
authoritarian regime. In Italy, by contrast, conservative elites supported
a massive society-based campaign of violent attacks on left-wingers,
which allowed the leader of the new paramilitary movement to claim
power and establish a mobilizational and increasingly totalitarian

12
Szabó (2008) overrates the importance of formal institutions in calling the Horthy regime
a limited, restricted democracy.
 Autocratic Imposition 123

system,13 creating the novel model of fascist dictatorship (recent overview

in Berman 2019: chap. 11).
Italy’s pronounced social, regional, and religious inequalities and
cleavages gave rise to a socialist party (Partito Socialista Italiano) that
was unusually radical. Its political isolation deprived this PSI of policy
efficacy, discrediting its reformist wing and strengthening calls for revolu-
tion (Lindemann 1974: 5–6, 8–9, 23–25; Corner 2002: 279–83, 292).
Rapidly increasing party and union membership in the 1910s weakened
organizational firmness and discipline, subjected the party to strong
pressures from its mass constituencies, and further diminished the influ-
ence of the moderate parliamentary leadership over the militant new
cadres. Consequently, “since 1917 [the party] had been looking to
Moscow” (Seton-Watson 1967: 511), “and it quickly came under the
spell of the soviet model” (Riley 2019: 46). In fact, the Russian
Revolution and its apparent emulation in Germany in November
1918 induced the PSI to “call for the immediate ‘institution of the
Socialist Republic and the dictatorship of the proletariat’” (Eley 2002:
170; see also Procacci 1968: 166–67; Sabbatucci 1996: 45, 48, 50). Thus,
by contrast to its counterparts in Europe’s northwestern half, which
charted a reformist, social-democratic course and rejected the siren song
of communism,14 the PSI was deeply impressed by Lenin’s success and
moved in a revolutionary direction, at least with its extremist pronounce-
ments and bold demand-making.15
This radicalism stimulated the outbreak of mass contention. In the
words of expert Paolo Farneti (1978: 130), “the political leadership of
the Massimalisti [the PSI’s extremist faction], their dream of an Italian
October Revolution, was initially responsible for the wave of strikes that
allied the middle and upper classes against socialism.” Radical sectors of
labor indeed fomented an upsurge of conflict, making 1919/20 the bien-
nio rosso – the two red years (Bosworth 2002: 140–41; Eley 2002:
169–72; Riley 2019: 44–47). Workers in Northern Italy’s industries
started a host of strikes, which employer intransigence often turned
violent. This escalation culminated in a wave of factory occupations in

13
While Italian fascism was long depicted as comparatively benign, recent research has
properly emphasized its systematic use of violence and totalitarian character (Gentile
2012: 88–89; Hagenloh 2016: 353–55).
14
Schulz (1975: 30–31) and Corner (2002: 275, 286, 294) highlight the striking contrasts
between the PSI and Germany’s SPD.
15
Hilton-Young (1949: 82–83, 88–90, 98–103); Seton-Watson (1967: 524–26, 548);
Lindemann (1974: 53–63); Ravindranathan (1989: 26–27); Knox (2007: 219–20).
124 The Suppression of Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

mid-1920, which seemed to proceed “in accordance with the Russian

revolutionary formula,” as liberal politician Carlo Sforza (1925: 359)
suspected. Labor activists indeed demanded the outright socialization of
industry and the PSI seemed to be moving toward revolution (Hilton-
Young 1949: 104–6, 109–12, 122; Lindemann 1974: 235–38).
No wonder that this direct challenge to property made business and
conservative politicians tremble with fear. Their “sense of existential
threat” (Lyttelton 2004: 36–39; Knox 2007: 311, 313) triggered intense
loss aversion. For rising fascist leader Benito Mussolini ([1928] 1998:
114), the factory occupations were “an example of Bolshevism in action”
that revealed “the incredible weakness of the government” – and that
therefore called for patriotic Italians to take the initiative and “defend the
public order at any price” (Mussolini [1928] 1998: 117).
Perhaps even more importantly,16 agrarian elites faced similarly rad-
ical threats. Peasants and landless laborers took over land, especially in
the fertile Po Valley and Central Italy, but also in the poor South (Seton-
Watson 1967: 521–24; Lindemann 1974: 119). Unaccustomed to such
defiance, landowners overestimated the danger (Sforza 1925: 365) and
desperately sought help to protect their property and maintain social
control. The resulting widespread conflicts resembled “a rural guerrilla
war” (Knox 2007: 247; see 247–50, 276–77, 313, 317; see also Read
2008: 167–71). In addition, the municipal elections of late 1920 shock-
ingly gave the Socialist Party, which fomented this contention, control
over many towns and villages in the rural conflict zones. Facing radical
administrations that would support bottom-up mass pressures and
impose redistributive reforms exacerbated the fears of landowners,
farmers, and conservative political forces (Squeri 1983: 327–36).
Certainly, left-wingers were often much more revolutionary in rhetoric
than in their actual behavior (Sabbatucci 1996: 49; Eley 2002: 171–73).
For instance, the massive factory occupations ended with a negotiated
withdrawal, which preserved business property. After this retreat,
“Bolshevism . . . was already dying out in 1920 and 1921,” as a liberal
observer highlighted (Sforza 1925: 367; similarly Farneti 1978: 18–21).
Yet the radicalism of a major party and the breadth of popular contention
made status-quo defenders perceive unusually serious and
sustained threats.

16
In line with Luebbert’s (1991: 295–303) classical analysis, historians (Corner 2002:
277–78, 289–90, 293) and political scientists (Wellhofer 2003: 93, 98, 101, 104) stress
fascism’s roots in agrarian conflict.
 Autocratic Imposition 125

At the same time, the defensive capacities of establishment sectors

seemed low. Liberal and conservative parties resembled clubs of notables
and won support through clientelism and corruption (Lyttelton 2004:
8–10; Riley 2019: 36–37). With their weak party organizations, these
groupings were ill-prepared for the adoption of proportional representa-
tion in 1919, which resulted in a clear victory of the better-structured
socialist and Catholic parties (Seton-Watson 1967: 549–50; Lindemann
1974: 89–90). Liberals and conservatives found a coalition with the new
Catholic Popolari unappealing because under the influence of the Pope’s
social doctrine and the Russian Revolution, that party was quite left-
leaning (Smith 1959: 325–26; Seton-Watson 1967: 512–14); it even
developed a radical wing of “white Bolsheviks” (Foot 1997). For these
reasons, Italy experienced frequent changes in government with low
performance in decision-making and problem solving (Lyttelton 2004:
32–35, 40; Knox 2007: 268–74, 361–62). In particular, status-quo
defenders did not form a cohesive phalanx and effectively contained and
opposed the radical forces.
Furthermore, the Italian state had traditionally lacked infrastructural
power, as evident in the mafia’s stubborn persistence (Berman 2019:
135–38). Even in the better-administered Northern regions, the police
proved unable to combat the post–WWI unrest, stretched thin by the multi-
plicity of challenges in various cities and vast rural areas (Knox 2007:
275–76, 310, 364). Whereas in Germany, military units and government-
recruited Freikorps decisively defeated the armed communist uprisings, Italy
could not reliably marshal state coercion. Consequently, the biennio rosso
seemed to threaten a descent into social chaos and political disintegration
(Hilton-Young 1949: 90–92, 97, 103). Would this weak state crumble as in
Russia in 1917, enabling radical sectors to grab power and impose the
dictatorship of the proletariat they kept announcing?
At the same time, ideological polarization gave rise to a number of
organizationally inchoate right-wing forces. Italian nationalism, inflamed
during WWI and further stoked by a disappointing peace settlement,
allowed these groupings to recruit eager, fervent supporters. These
violence-prone youngsters hated their “internal enemies” as much as the
country’s external foes (especially the Slavs of new neighbor Yugoslavia).
After all, Italy’s Socialists had opposed the war effort, contrary to their
counterparts in other European countries, like Germany. With this
unusual lack of patriotism, the party drew nationalists’ ire and deepened
the gulf between the ideological camps. It was out of this hot stew of
nationalism and anti-leftism that fascism arose.
126 The Suppression of Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

The most dynamic force that combated the radical threat arising from
left-wing contention were self-defense units and paramilitary groupings
that squashed extremist strikes and property takeovers with brute force
(Farneti 1978: 17, 22–23). These bands, joined together into the fasci di
combattimento, were headed by Benito Mussolini, a former socialist
leader whom the war-time upsurge of nationalism had turned into a
right-winger promising to vanquish “Bolshevism” (Hilton-Young 1949:
118). Abetted by the ineffectual police and military and financed by
business people and landowners, the fascists drowned the left’s revolu-
tionary illusions in an orgy of violence.17 As Mussolini’s ([1928] 1998:
167) autobiography boasted,18 “To crush a strike the government was
powerless, but a new strength had been substituted for the government!”
Because left-radicals misunderstood and underestimated this assault
from hordes of right-wing paramilitaries (Sabbatucci 1996: 51–52), they
did not effectively fight back. As Mussolini’s Black Shirt movement
swelled from 21,000 in late 1920 to approximately 320,000 in May
1922 (Lill 2002: 379), its power increased enormously. Soon these armed
reactionaries terrorized Italy’s democratic and liberal forces as well.
Because the police and military refused to rein them in and actually
provided clandestine support, fascist groupings took effective control of
whole towns and regions, undermining the authority of elected officials.
Mussolini’s rising movement thus replaced Italy’s state organs in com-
manding and employing ever more organized coercion.
With the seemingly irresistible growth of fascism, Mussolini soon
became a significant force in national politics. As socialist reluctance
and moderates’ distrust precluded an effective anti-fascist coalition
(Sassoon 2007: 120–22), sociopolitical elites, including veteran statesman
Giovanni Giolitti (Hilton-Young 1949: 123–25), believed that the only
chance for restoring normality lay in accommodating the Black Shirt
leader. Contained by an alliance with conservative politicians and
hemmed in by the military, king, and church, Mussolini would – so the
hope went – have little latitude. Once this outsider had to shoulder
government responsibility, he would surely become less intransigent and
transgressive (Sassoon 2007: 25, 101, 132, 135–36). Moreover, after

17
Bosworth (2002: 150–57, 163–64); Lyttelton (2004: 39–41, 52–71); Knox (2007:
314–24); Sassoon (2007: 90–103); Gentile (2012: 88–89); Gerwarth and Horne
(2012a: 44–45); also Payne (1995: 93–101).
18
Mussolini ([1928] 1998: 117–22, 124–28, 134, 163, 167–68) celebrated fascist violence,
which he depicted as a defensive response to Russia-inspired radical-left provocations.
 Autocratic Imposition 127

winning power and commanding the organs of the state, he would

demobilize his shock troops – and could thus be controlled. With these
calculations in mind, established elites decided not to resist the farcical
March on Rome, Mussolini’s masterstroke of “psychological warfare”
(Lyttelton 2004: 86; see Sassoon 2007: 9–15); instead, they opened the
door to the intruder and appointed him as head of government (Lyttelton
2004: 90–98; Knox 2007: 367–71).
Yet although the first Mussolini administration contained important
representatives of conservative parties and establishment sectors
(Bosworth 2002: 177–80), it quickly became clear that the fascist leader
had no intention of calming down; instead, he resolutely pursued ambi-
tious “revolutionary” goals (cf. Mussolini [1928] 1998: 175–78, 184,
190–91, 197). For this purpose, he kept his paramilitary forces mobilized,
turned them into an official militia that “conferred on [his] régime . . . a
great reserve strength” (Mussolini [1928] 1998: 207), and continued to
employ violence to destroy the opposition (Gentile 2012: 85, 99–103).
While fascist terror targeted especially the left, it extended to democratic
centrists as well and intimidated the right. In this way, Mussolini disman-
tled liberal safeguards, concentrated power, and demolished Italy’s dem-
ocracy from within. Garnering mass support through the distribution of
plentiful patronage, Il Duce engineered an overwhelming electoral victory
in 1924 (Bosworth 2002: 192–93), which guaranteed his party a lopsided
majority in parliament. After effectively imposing a dictatorship in 1925,
Mussolini turned his regime ever more totalitarian as an all-encompassing
propaganda campaign and the charismatic leader’s theatrical perform-
ances before mass audiences complemented the continued use of violence
(Gentile 2005: 178–201).
Fascism gave the world a new regime type, namely a reactionary
autocracy of a dynamic, mobilizational character that kept society and
politics in a comprehensive stranglehold. As Chapter 1 explained, this
model of right-wing totalitarianism differed starkly from authoritarian
rule, in which a dictator or small elite monopolizes politics while demobil-
izing and depoliticizing the citizenry. Whereas authoritarian rulers want
the people to stay out of politics, fascists as typical totalitarian leaders
induce and force the population to participate in politics and contribute
with full effort to the leader’s goals (Linz 2000, 2002; recently Berman
2019: 214, 232; for Italy, see Gentile 2005: 245–48, 265–69). Indicating
his transformational ambition, Mussolini marked a new era: He comple-
mented the official calendar by having citizens count the years since the
March on Rome as well.
128 The Suppression of Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

Why Authoritarianism in Hungary, yet Fascism in Italy?

Both Italy’s novel model of fascism and Hungary’s more conventional
authoritarian regime resulted from counterrevolutionary reactions to
radical-left efforts stimulated by the Bolshevik revolution. Why such
dissimilar regime types? An important proximate cause lay in the different
nature of the extremist challenge. In Hungary, communists had (mis-)
governed for months, provoking hostility with their red terror and their
over-ambitious, dogmatic transformations such as rural collectivization
(Hanebrink 2006: 71–76). As a result, this radical-left experiment
crumbled from the inside and then fell through defeat in international
war. Thereafter, reactionary military force easily suppressed the remnants
of left-wing extremism and enforced the restoration of the sociopolitical
order. The army formed by Admiral Horthy thus guaranteed the counter-
revolutionary victory. While paramilitary squads continued to exact
revenge (Bodó 2011; Gioielli 2015), this white terror, a legacy of loss
aversion, was not “necessary” for the ideological struggle, which was
already won. The predominance of top-down coercion, cemented through
the marginalization of the terrorist squads in 1920–21 (Bodó 2011: 141),
paved the way for a hierarchical, non-mobilizational, typically authori-
tarian regime.
In Italy, by contrast, status-quo defenders faced a multitude of left-
wing strikes, protests, and rebellions erupting in various regions with
widespread popular participation. Yet the Italian state seemed too weak
and ineffectual to extinguish this extremist trouble and turmoil. As the
state failed to guarantee stability by employing top-down coercion, a
vacuum appeared that a new force arising from society would fill. In the
action–reaction dynamic highlighted in this book, the proliferation of
radical-left contention prompted a mass-based, bottom-up strategy of
right-wing repression. The main purveyors of this counterrevolutionary
violence were Mussolini’s fascist gangs (Mussolini [1928] 1998: 117–22,
124–28, 134, 163, 167–68). Their anti-left impetus was so strong that on
several occasions they escaped from their leader’s control and under-
mined temporary compromises with mainstream groupings that
Mussolini sought in his opportunistic quest for acceding to power
(Lyttelton 2004: 72–75, 78). When the Duce did win the premiership
through the March on Rome, he thus commanded a massive paramilitary
force that allowed and induced him to establish comprehensive hegemony
over Italian politics and society. Enforced mobilization and incessant
ideological indoctrination gave rise to a totalitarian regime, which by
 Conclusion 129

contrast to Hungarian authoritarianism sought to politicize society. Thus,

different experiences with extremism dialectically shaped the nature of
right-wing reaction and the resulting regime type.
The structural foundation for this difference in autocratic trajectory
lies in the modern industry and agriculture of Northern Italy, where
fascism emerged, compared to the “backwardness” of Hungary’s socio-
economic and political development (Janos 1982: 285–87; see in general
Luebbert 1991: 258–66). Politically, Italy had enjoyed decades of liberal,
competitive, albeit oligarchical parliamentarism, whereas, under
Habsburg rule, the Hungarian parliament had played a restricted role
and the gentry had dominated politics. Because the sociopolitical base for
radical mobilization in Hungary was limited, a traditional authoritarian
regime could restore and maintain sociopolitical stability. In Italy, by
contrast, only the novel regime type of fascism with its fervent mass base
could control a more modern society by totalitarian means (Linz 2002;
Gentile 2005). While this divergence between conservative authoritarian-
ism and fascist totalitarianism appeared at the very beginning of the
interwar reverse wave, Chapters 7 and 8 demonstrate how profoundly
it shaped autocratic regime trajectories in the Eastern and Southern half of
Europe throughout the 1920s and 1930s.


After Chapter 3 examined the rapid wave of emulative revolution inspired
by the Bolshevist takeover in Russia, this chapter analyzed the reaction of
status-quo defenders, namely determined counterrevolution. Predictably
in the world of bounded rationality, radical-left efforts at isomorphic
diffusion provoked reactionary counter-diffusion, which proved uni-
formly successful and managed to forestall or reverse the dreaded prolif-
eration of communism. Interestingly, the opposing sides in these violent
conflicts employed the same cognitive shortcuts and were inspired by
shared inferences from Lenin’s feat, namely the belief that established
regimes were brittle and that left-wing revolution was likely to spread.
Of course, divergent interests then prompted deep enmity: As left-wing
extremists sought to follow the Soviet example, right-wingers, centrists,
and even moderate leftists combatted them with all means. This skewed
alignment of hostile forces shows that asymmetrical loss aversion induced
a much wider range of sectors to block radical transformation than to
promote it – an important reason for the stark failure of these isomorphic
emulation efforts. Thus, mediated by organizational structures, cognitive-
130 The Suppression of Isomorphic Emulation Efforts

psychological mechanisms propelled an outburst of brutal clashes, which

definitively blocked the spread of communism.
The immediate backlash to the Russian Revolution did not doom
liberal democracy, however. While anti-Bolshevist repression was often
brutal and excessive, in most cases it defeated radical challenges
decisively. Why then seek shelter under unaccountable, arbitrary autoc-
racy? Accordingly, this paroxysm of violence brought the destruction of
democracy only where the danger seemed most acute. Unusually,
Soviet-style rule gained a hold over Hungary; and in Northern Italy,
left-wing radicalism was particularly widespread and persistent. Given
the political and organizational weakness of status-quo defenders in those
two countries, reactionaries resorted to massive violence. Reliance on
military force in Hungary then ushered in exclusionary authoritarian
rule, whereas a mushrooming paramilitary movement in Italy imposed
mobilizational totalitarianism.
Yet while those two nations traced the distinctive regime paths that
antidemocratic reaction during the interwar years would take, the large
majority of European countries first gave liberal pluralism a chance.
These democracies faced serious ideological challenges and threats,
however, not only from the radical left, but soon from the radical right
as well. These sources of severe political turbulence are the subject of the
next chapter.
 5

Persistence of the Communist Threat and Rising

Appeal of Fascism

Chapter 4 showed that the wave of isomorphic efforts to replicate the

Russian Revolution provoked a ferocious backlash and uniformly
suffered defeat at the hand of determined, excessively brutal repression.
Left-wing diffusion thus drew right-wing and centrist counter-diffusion,
which decisively forestalled Bolshevism’s spread. Interestingly, however,
this strong reaction rarely brought the destruction of democracy and the
imposition of dictatorship. Only in nations where communism temporar-
ily took hold, as in Hungary, or where the established state failed
to curb large-scale, recurrent leftist contention, as in Italy, did autocracy
emerge soon after WWI. Moreover, these two dictatorships differed
profoundly: Italy’s emerging fascism contrasted with Hungary’s
competitive authoritarianism.
Thus, the wave of precipitous challenges by the extreme left did not
prompt an equally crisp, widespread wave of democratic breakdown.
While status-quo defenders commonly employed exorbitant force to
crush the rash attempts to emulate Lenin’s triumph, they did not overreact
so much as to abolish democracy as well. In the world of bounded
rationality, establishment forces were overly fearful of emulative rebel-
lions and therefore engaged in overkill; however, they were not gripped
by total panic and did not abandon any consideration of the actual power
constellation, which showed their lopsided superiority and clear capacity
to squash communist revolts. Indeed, the ill-planned and haphazard
nature of leftist uprisings facilitated their decisive suppression; as concen-
trated outbursts of coercion extinguished these immediate threats and
often prevented their recurrence, the overthrow of recently installed dem-
ocracies seemed neither necessary nor likely to elicit the requisite backing.

131
132 Persistence of the Communist Threat and Appeal of Fascism

These bloody victories allayed the fears of anti-communists and

induced most moderate-left and centrist forces, especially broad-based
parties such as Social Democracy and Christian Democracy, to end their
emergency-driven support for unleashing governmental coercion and
paramilitary violence. As the initial crisis caused by the quick prolifer-
ation of communist rebellions eased, these pro-democratic groupings
reaffirmed their commitment to human rights and the rule of law, core
principles of liberal democracy. Consequently, in many countries the
fledgling regimes instituted after WWI made gradual advances toward
greater stability.
But while radical-left hopes for a quick world revolution proved illu-
sory and the new Soviet model failed to spread, communism did retain its
hold over Russia, which also promoted its diffusion with great energy.
Lenin and his comrades eventually achieved a hard-fought victory in the
Russian civil war and managed to consolidate their totalitarian regime.
Moreover, the Soviet Union used the new Communist International
(Comintern) to foment revolution across the world, targeting especially
Central and Eastern Europe. Consequently, the communist threat
remained alive. Established sociopolitical forces continued to face a
latent enemy.
Indeed, with Soviet encouragement and support, communist move-
ments came to operate in virtually every country, working hard to
increase their influence in politics and society with the ultimate goal of
revolutionary overhauls. Lenin’s disciples sooner or later learned from the
failure of the initial armed efforts to emulate the Bolshevist power grab.
Therefore, radical leftists backed away from impetuous violent uprisings
and moved to patient proselytizing and organizing. For this purpose, they
took advantage of liberal democracy, with its guarantees of ample free-
doms, and sought to gain a foothold in the party system and the trade
unions. As more and more countries tried to block communist advances
through bans and prohibitions, radical left-wingers increasingly operated
in secretive ways, infiltrating existing groupings or founding new,
innocuous-looking front organizations. By fueling suspicions that many
left-wing formations could be Trojan horses controlled by communists,
this subversive approach aggravated the concerns of status-quo defenders.
For all of these reasons, the definitive defeat of the immediate rash of
armed rebellions did not put to rest status-quo defenders’ perceptions of
revolutionary threat. Because the communist virus retained a powerful
international presence and tried to infect many domestic polities as well,
right-wing, centrist, and even center-left forces continued to see danger.
 Persistence of the Communist Threat and Appeal of Fascism 133

How could they immunize the existing system against persistent efforts at
radical transformation? How could they protect themselves once and for
all from the pernicious designs of extreme-left revolutionaries?
To these worries and quandaries, Italy’s novel model of dictatorship
offered a drastic solution. After all, Mussolini’s fascism did not only arise
through direct attacks against serious leftist contention but also, after
gaining power, this reactionary totalitarianism stabilized the sociopoliti-
cal order and achieved considerable success on the domestic and inter-
national front. For these reasons, fascism came to look like an unusually
effective recipe for eradicating communism, reinvigorating a polity, and
strengthening a nation. This new regime type therefore drew enormous
attention and won strong attraction among a wide range of sociopolitical
forces and even many intellectuals, artists, and scientists. Perhaps the
radical right could guarantee definitive protection against the radical left?
The persistence of the communist threat thus boosted the appeal of
fascism, as highlighted in Chapter 1. In the world of bounded rationality,
where striking challenges prompt significant overreactions, one ideo-
logical pole dialectically heightened the attraction of the opposite. This
polarization, which induced both sides to fight for supremacy with all
means, fueled the monumental battle that tore apart democratic politics
during Hobsbawm’s (1996) “age of extremes.” Interestingly, the clash of
millenarian ideological visions also mobilized conservative status-quo
defenders and centrist adherents of liberal democracy, creating multiple
fluid frontlines (Bracher 1982). In many countries, especially in Central
and Eastern Europe, these fierce conflicts destroyed liberal pluralism,
trampled to death by the heavy boots of the contending forces.
Because of the double deterrent effect discussed in Chapter 2, however,
neither one of the ideological extremes won out in the regime conflict; in
fact, they did not even prompt full-scale emulation in other nations, with
the important exception of Germany. Due to the interests and power
capabilities of conservative elites, it was not communism and fascism that
spread but hierarchical, exclusionary authoritarianism. Establishment
sectors abhorred the costs and risks not only of left-wing revolution but
also of right-wing totalitarianism. Because they doubted the defensive
capacity of liberal democracy, they sought protection in the strong arms
of authoritarian rulers, which would forcefully guarantee order and
stability by suppressing both of the ideological extremes. Before
Chapters 6 to 8 explain how autocracy proliferated along various path-
ways, the present chapter documents the persistence of the communist
threat and the appeal of the fascist antidote.
134 Persistence of the Communist Threat and Appeal of Fascism

    

The Survival of the Soviet Union and the Political Activism

of Communists
In the eyes of status-quo defenders, their decisive defeat of radical-left
efforts to emulate Lenin’s success did not eliminate the danger of com-
munism. After all, Russia’s Bolsheviks narrowly won the brutal civil war
and managed to consolidate their grasp over most of the old Romanov
Empire. By building “socialism in one country,” they demonstrated the
viability of a profound revolutionary transformation and turned the
Soviet Union into a model for left-wing extremists across the world:
Marxism could finally boast a concrete example of a fundamental alter-
native to capitalism and “bourgeois democracy.” Moreover, the USSR
eagerly promoted communism’s spread. The Soviets bolstered their
admirers and disciples in other countries with financial subsidies and
political directives. In early 1919, Lenin founded the Communist
International as a worldwide association of radical left-wingers. The
Comintern instigated the formation of communist parties all over the
planet and guided their subversive activities (Bernecker 2002: 368–70;
Vatlin and Smith 2014: 187–90; McAdams 2017: 102–5, 135–36).
For establishment sectors, the Bolshevist great power and its constant
attempts to incite profound, radical transformations constituted a signifi-
cant threat. While nations bordering the USSR, such as Romania, had
special reason for concern, even faraway Latin America was a target for
communist organization and agitation (Pinheiro 1991; Spenser 2009).
Soviet involvement exacerbated the concerns of status-quo defenders
about any stirrings by domestic radicals; regardless of their actual
strength, these internal activists drew suspicion and fear as potential
beachheads of the communist great power. The Soviet Union and its
world-revolutionary ambitions thus created and reinforced a common
menace for most countries.
Encouraged by the Russian Bolsheviks’ success, radical left-wingers
across the globe indeed sought to win support by forming or infiltrating
political parties, trade unions, and other associations. From this organiza-
tional basis, they persistently pursued their revolutionary cause. They
often participated in elections, trying to win political influence or at least
advertise their transformative goals. Political liberalism and democracy
provided considerable room for these proselytizing efforts by guarantee-
ing crucial rights such as freedom of speech and assembly. Where
 The Continuing Danger of Communism 135

democracies then restricted these rights to stem the advance of their sworn
enemies, as often happened during the 1920s and 1930s, communists
sought to evade these bans by creating new organizations with innocuous
names or by taking over non-communist groupings in clandestine ways.
This move to organizational efforts and electoral politics reflected an
often reluctant change of strategy.1 Sooner or later, Lenin’s disciples
learned from the undeniable failure of the isomorphic efforts to emulate
the October Revolution. Because the disastrous defeat of these armed
uprisings created terrible costs, a reality check eventually prompted a
correction of the overoptimistic inferences that radical left-wingers had
originally derived from the Bolshevist takeover via the availability and
representativeness heuristic. After all, while the bounds of rationality
impair the capacity for properly evaluating costs and benefits, they do
not totally preclude learning, but merely slow down unavoidable adjust-
ments. After banging their heads against the wall until they had been
bloodied repeatedly, left-wing radicals slowly faced up to reality. Because
the prevailing constellation of power became painfully obvious, they
finally realized that violent power grabs were futile (for Germany, see
Broué 2006: 308–12).
For these reasons, left-wing extremists gave up the effort to replicate
the Bolshevist power grab directly, and begrudgingly entered the electoral
arena (McAdams 2017: 116). The self-proclaimed vanguard thus
resigned itself to the need to win over “the working classes” through
persuasion. Specifically, they would need to gain power from the bottom
up, rather than making a Lenin-style coup and then imposing the true
path to socialism from the top down.
While this fundamental change in revolutionary strategy was driven by
the uniform, decisive crushing of armed uprisings, it was also encouraged
and facilitated by the fact that this anti-Communist repression did not
entail the imposition of dictatorship in most countries, as Chapter 4
explained. Outside Hungary and Italy, democracy survived the initial
outburst of severe conflict; and with its guarantees of political rights
and electoral openness, liberal pluralism offered a propitious setting for
radical-left proselytizing and organization building. Why risk violent
death when democracy opened much less dangerous avenues for advan-
cing one’s political goals and appealing for support? Thus, democracy
helped domesticate left-wing radicals; as long as they were far from

1
On the internal debates and conflicts about this strategy shift, see e.g. Lindemann (1974:
284–85).
136 Persistence of the Communist Threat and Appeal of Fascism

power, they had incentives to work through the official institutions and
avoid violent challenges.
From the perspective of conservatives, however, the downside was that
liberal democracy did not definitively forestall the radical-left threat. On
the contrary, it allowed communists to act openly as regular, legitimate
political forces; and where restrictions were imposed, liberal guarantees
made it difficult to enforce them resolutely. Thus, instead of eliminating
left-wing extremism, democracy gave it considerable room of maneuver.
For the moment, the communist wolf was eating chalk and hiding its
dangerous fangs under sheep’s clothing. But as soon as an opportunity
arose, it would again make a determined bid for power and unleash
revolution – so conservatives feared. In their eyes, democracy failed by
keeping the danger alive.

Widespread Fears of Communism

For these reasons, many political forces continued to worry about the
communist menace and deplored democracy’s congenital weakness.
Radical right-wingers were, of course, particularly obsessed with these
threats. Hitler’s Mein Kampf ([1925] 2016: 965–67), for instance,
accused left-wing extremists of taking shameless advantage of the oppor-
tunities offered by liberal democracy.2 To close these loopholes, it was
crucial to effect “the excretion of the Marxist poison from our Volk’s
body” and “declare on Marxism the war of annihilation” (Hitler [1925]
2016: 1721).
In similarly dramatic terms, the draft “Memorandum [that Hungarian
conservative] Miklós Horthy [considered sending] to Twenty-Three
Heads of State on Joining Forces against the Soviet Union” in
1932 warned that “human civilization cannot be saved . . . so long as a
dangerous purulent abscess like Soviet Russia is tolerated on the body of
mankind.” This fear, which induced the Magyar head of state to call for
an international anti-communist crusade “to strangle this satanic power,”
reflected the traumatic experience of the Béla Kun dictatorship. After
“Hungary [had] felt the horrors of the Soviet régime on her own body,”
Horthy accused “Soviet Russia [of] conducting a war of annihilation
against the whole world” and of sponsoring “subversive activities
throughout the world. It maintains a troop of terrorists at home, a legion

2
Of course, after his failed coup of 1923, Hitler employed the same cynical strategy, as he
himself highlighted (Hitler [1925] 2016: 895)!
 The Continuing Danger of Communism 137

of inciters and agents abroad” (reprinted in Szinai and Szücz 1965: 55,
57; see also 90).
Many right-wingers harbored these fears of communism. Portugal’s
archconservative dictator António de Oliveira Salazar highlighted the
threat that had arisen with the Russian Revolution: “With it, a de-facto
situation emerged that would bring the gravest future complications,
infecting [contagiando] nearby countries and extending the threat to all
races of the world.” Due to subversive activities by socialists and
“Communists, the maximalist enemies of all organized society, . . . dis-
order turns profound and prolongs itself in time, severely aggravating the
problems.” In Salazar’s view, countries now lived “under the black
threat of Bolshevism” (Relatório 1932: 9–11, folhas 52–54). Even across
the Atlantic Ocean in remote South America, Brazilian strongman
Getúlio Vargas highlighted the danger of communism in a private letter
to a confidant when preparing his dictatorial coup of 1937 (Vargas 1937:
2; for these fears, see also Melo 1936; Maciel 1937: 2; and Kubitschek
1979: 59, 72).
In sum, the Soviet Union with its persistent world-revolutionary efforts
and its eager disciples across the globe instilled deep fear among a wide
range of status-quo defenders and right-wingers. In their eyes, radical-left
subversion seriously menaced the sociopolitical order. Scholars com-
monly depict these concerns as exaggerated and equate them with la
grande peur, the irrational panic gripping popular groupings at the start
of the French Revolution (Lefebvre 1979). By evoking this famous case of
excessive threat perceptions to characterize conservative anxieties in
countries ranging from Brazil to Spain and Germany (Pinheiro 1991:
85; Ranzato 2014; Jones 2016: chap. 1), these observers emphasize that
status-quo defenders clearly overestimated the communist menace. As a
leading historian concludes, “The fear of the Left, particularly of
Bolshevism, was hugely out of proportion to the Left’s actual power, or
even potential for power, in most of Europe” (Kershaw 2015: 297). These
scholarly assessments corroborate actors’ significant deviations from
standard rationality, which this book attributes to cognitive shortcuts
activated by the striking and scary precedent of the Russian Revolution.

The Political Efforts of Communists: Successes and Limitations

How successful were radical left-wingers’ persistent attempts to prepare
the spread of revolution? With their embrace of political organization and
electoral politics, communists operated in practically every country. Their
138 Persistence of the Communist Threat and Appeal of Fascism

efforts to win footholds in the party system and the union movement
often made only halting progress, but advanced quite far in several
European countries (Bartolini 2000: 112–19). Interestingly, success was
particularly pronounced in some nations scarred by the initial wave of
armed uprisings, such as Finland and Germany. Despite the fierce
backlash prompted by these ill-considered revolutionary adventures,
communists soon managed to win substantial political support. In fact,
the brutality of anti-Bolshevist crackdowns discredited the moderate left
and thus facilitated extremist recruitment efforts (for Germany, see Weitz
1997: 109; Wehler 2010: 399–405; for Finland, Hodgson 1967: 89).
In Finland, communists recovered with surprising speed from their
bloody defeat in the civil war and from the white terror. Although tainted
by close association with the national enemy, the Soviet Union (cf.
Luostarinen 1989: 128–30, 134), where the Finnish Communist Party
was formed (Hodgson 1967: 81–90), they soon found considerable
backing in the union movement and garnered 14 percent of the vote in
the 1922 elections (Capoccia 2005: 142; see also 141–53). The radical left
achieved this temporary upsurge despite a militant program calling for the
“vigorous prepar[ation] for armed revolution” and “an iron dictatorship
of the workers . . . [that] is not to be replaced by democracy” (Kirby 1975:
244; see also Hodgson 1967: 85–88). Indeed, they garnered this support
although “the government used every means at its disposal to repress the
‘public’ Communist organizations” (Capoccia 2005: 148; see also
Hodgson 1967: 121). To make headway in this hostile terrain, commun-
ists resorted to clandestine infiltration (Hodgson 1967: 93–94), which
targeted labor and youth organizations, and even the Finnish military.
Their German brethren achieved similar success, facilitated by the
openness of the Weimar Republic, which initially imposed fewer prohib-
itions. Moreover, mainstream social democracy’s moderation in the revo-
lutionary crisis of 1918/19 and its frequent use of brutal repression
against Lenin’s disciples opened up considerable political space on the
far left. Whereas their more hardcore Austro-Marxist approach allowed
Austria’s Social Democrats to marginalize the communists,3 Germany’s
SPD continually faced an energetic enemy on its left flank. Indeed, while,
during most of the 1920s, the vote share of mainstream Social Democracy
stagnated, the KPD achieved gradually increasing support from 1924
onward. In November 1932, the communists won 16.9 percent, close

3
This political achievement came, however, at the cost of serious polarization among the
main democratic parties, as analyzed in Pelinka (2017: chaps. 5–6).
 The Continuing Danger of Communism 139

to the NSDAP’s 18.3 percent of 1930. The KPD recruited with particular
success among the unemployed (Wirsching 1999: 180–82, 401–10); thus,
it received a significantly larger boost from the Great Depression than its
Social-Democratic competitors and even its National-Socialist enemies
(Weitz 1997: 156–62). During democracy’s terminal crisis in the early
1930s, the communists therefore looked like a serious contender for
power.
Even in faraway Latin America, communist parties formed, often with
Comintern guidance and support. Radicals established a substantial foot-
hold in several countries, ranging from revolutionary Mexico to conserva-
tive Brazil (Schmitt 1965: 3–15; Goldenberg 1971: chap. 2; Pinheiro
1991; Spenser 2009). Because underdevelopment kept the “industrial
proletariat” small, communists tried – with varying success – to mobilize
support among other sectors, including the peasantry (Spenser 2009:
258–63) and even the military, one of their favorite targets in Brazil
(Pinheiro 1991: 195).
While actively proselytizing and organizing among urban sectors,
especially the working class, communism suffered from a significant
limitation both in Europe and Latin America: The radical left faced great
difficulty mobilizing mass support in the countryside. While Marxist
doctrine did not attribute revolutionary potential to the rural population,
written off as a “sack of potatoes,” Lenin’s takeover in Russia had been
greatly facilitated by the massive peasant uprising of 1917 (Skocpol 1979:
99, 135–40, 210). This uncontrollable explosion of rural discontent had
pulverized the Tsar’s crumbling army and fueled the collapse of state
authority, which created the power vacuum exploited by the
Bolshevists. Inspired by this revolutionary precedent, communists could
have targeted ruralites in the “backward” economies of Eastern and
Southern Europe (Janos 1982; Berend 1998). In fact, “[t]he voices of
the least well-off smallholders and the landless were strengthened by the
Russian revolutions, which deeply influenced the peasant movements all
over East-central Europe and Finland by spreading the idea of ‘land to the
tiller’” (Jörgensen 2006: 87). Thus, in 1918/19, there was a potential for
forceful, even revolutionary, demand-making in the countryside.
To forestall this threatening prospect of agrarian radicalism by allevi-
ating rural grievances, many East European countries quickly enacted
wide-ranging and profoundly redistributive land reforms. In this way,
they sought to reduce the dramatic inequalities in rural property and
preempt revolutionary demands from radical left-wingers. Fear of com-
munism thus motived a rash of preventative reforms (see for Romania,
140 Persistence of the Communist Threat and Appeal of Fascism

Rothschild 1974: 281, 290–91). This redistribution went especially far in

the Baltic countries (Jörgensen 2006: 65, 71, 73; Readman 2007: 274),
which achieved national independence through a mix of civil war and
international war. Because Bolshevism constituted both an internal and
external threat, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were determined to fore-
stall renewed revolutionary upheaval. Political elites were aware of the
anti-revolutionary impact of land reform. Russian-German communist
Karl Radek (1962: 164), for instance, reports that Polish General
Władysław Sikorski, soon-to-be prime minister, commented immediately
after WWI: “You won [in Russia] because the peasant joined the worker.
We will not let that happen. We will enact an agrarian reform.”
Ethnic nationalism provided further impetus for radical land redistri-
bution, often decreed with only minimal compensation for prior owners.
Across Eastern Europe, smallholders and landless laborers frequently
hailed from the new titular nationalities, whereas ethnic minorities, now
stigmatized as “foreigners,” controlled large swaths of land. In Estonia
and Latvia, for instance, Baltic-German nobles, long dominant in the
countryside, turned into easy targets for expropriation (Vardys 1979:
332–33; Jörgensen 2006: 66, 71, 87; Kasekamp 2010: 113–14). In
Transylvania, incorporated into Romania after WWI, Hungarian aristo-
crats suffered the same fate (Hitchins 1994: 322–23, 347–55). Finland
also enacted land reform targeted in part at the traditional Swedish-
speaking elite; yet, like everywhere else, rural redistribution served mainly
as insurance against communism (Kirby 2006: 174, 187).
By creating or strengthening large masses of peasant proprietors and
middle farmers, these preemptive reforms cemented sociopolitical stabil-
ity (Jörgensen 2006: 89–91). Communists failed to find receptivity for
their revolutionary propaganda. Instead, conservative parties maintained
strong support in the countryside. By giving elites a partisan base and
guaranteeing them substantial influence in parliament and the govern-
ment, the legacies of land redistribution sustained democracy in countries
such as Finland and, for many years, in Estonia and Latvia as well. And
when threats to liberal pluralism did emerge, they rarely came from the
radical left (as with Estonia’s small communist uprising in late 1924), but
mostly, and most powerfully, from the radical right, namely the fascist-
leaning Lapua Movement in Finland and the Estonian veterans’ move-
ment (see Chapters 9 and 8, respectively). Thus, agrarian reform fulfilled
its main purpose of limiting support for communism.
In sum, radical left-wingers achieved considerable albeit varying suc-
cess in urban areas, but found little resonance in the countryside. With
 Fascism as a New Model of Counterrevolutionary Fortification 141

this uneven support, communism was unable to win elections. But with
their oft-proclaimed revolutionary goals and their continuing willingness
to employ violence, Lenin’s disciples and Stalin’s followers seemed to
constitute a significant threat to the established order. For conservative
sectors, communist agitation and organization demonstrated democracy’s
weakness and required stronger countermeasures. How could the estab-
lished system gain immunity against the Bolshevist virus?

     

 
The nagging doubts in democracy’s resilience prompted the search for
alternatives that would offer reliable protection against communist revo-
lution. After all, ample right-wing and centrist sectors saw pluralist
regimes as inherently weak and vulnerable to radical-left subversion
(Sontheimer 1978; Merz 1995). Real safety seemed to require thorough,
lasting immunization against the Soviet virus. How could nations debili-
tated by the devastations of WWI, which plunged several countries into
hyperinflation, withstand the world-revolutionary drive of communism?
Desperate to strengthen the established order against left-wing danger,
right-wingers advocated nondemocratic, autocratic rule with its concen-
trated power and willingness to employ ruthless coercion.

The Context of a Changing Zeitgeist: The Spread of Cultural Pessimism

The doubts about democracy’s strength and capacity to withstand radical
threats became critically acute with the imposition of communism in the
USSR. Yet they had begun to emerge earlier. During the late nineteenth
century, the Zeitgeist turned to cultural pessimism and a thorough ques-
tioning of reason (Bracher 1982: part I; Burrow 2000). Whereas in earlier
decades, rapid industrialization and urbanization and amazing advances
in science and engineering had inspired soaring faith in progress, the
turn of the century saw a comprehensive backlash, fed by Nietzschean
nihilism, Spencerian social Darwinism, Freudian emphasis on the subcon-
scious, and Sorelian celebration of myth and violence. Under the barrage
of these fierce intellectual challenges, enlightenment hopes started to
wither and proto-fascist ideas emerged (Sternhell 1994; Passmore 2009).
Belief in progress then suffered a knockout blow from the senseless
mass slaughter of WWI (Kramer 2009; Müller 2011: 16). The Great
Depression with its economic collapse and social catastrophe delivered
142 Persistence of the Communist Threat and Appeal of Fascism

the coup de grace. These disasters undermined liberal confidence that free
individual initiative coordinated by rule-bound competition would bring
increasing well-being, nurture a vibrant civil society, tame coercive power,
and make politics work for the greater good of the citizenry. In this
context of waning faith in liberalism, the Russian Revolution gave birth
to its mortal enemy: Communism with its dynamic vigor and world-
revolutionary mission appeared as a new and especially grave threat.
For all these reasons, liberalism and democracy no longer embodied
wellbeing and progress, but looked weak and vulnerable. The liberal
virtues of pluralism and tolerance paradoxically allowed liberty’s enemies
to gain strength. Laissez-faire caused turbulence and crises in the econ-
omy, fostered decadence in society, and eroded social community
(Gemeinschaft) and cultural tradition, jeopardizing the remaining
anchors in a fast-changing, chaotic world. Most basically, reason
appeared like the plaything of deeper, stronger, and much darker forces,
which had to be controlled in novel, non-liberal ways. Charismatic
leaders needed to step in, mobilize the vital energies of society, and build
a tightly integrated, organic order that exuded the fortitude to withstand
any enemy challenge. Salvation, especially from the danger of commun-
ism, seemed to lie in fundamental alternatives to liberal pluralism.
Thus, contrary to the normative assumptions underlying moderniza-
tion theory and constructivism, ever broader sectors questioned that the
future lay in liberalism and democracy. In their eyes, recent historical
catastrophes disproved enlightenment promises and brought forth dire
challenges, particularly communism, that called for a less “civil,” more
vigorous response. Since life was governed by fiercer, meaner forces than
rationality, survival required a power so concentrated and fearsome that
it could withstand existential struggle. During the interwar years, these
illiberal, antidemocratic ideas attracted increasing numbers of followers
(Sontheimer 1978; Bracher 1982).

Strength through Fascism? The Appeal of Mussolini’s New Model

The search for alternatives to liberal democracy and a reliable safeguard
against communism found an attractive model in Mussolini’s Italy.
Fascism looked like a great recipe for defeating leftist ferment, restoring
and guaranteeing order, and strengthening the state, domestically and
internationally (Adinolfi 2007: 30–35; Bosworth 2009a: 262–66;
Markwick 2009; Kershaw 2015: 228–30). After all, as Chapter 4
showed, the fascist movement had arisen through the violent defeat of
 Fascism as a New Model of Counterrevolutionary Fortification 143

widespread radical contention; its political power rested on armed prow-

ess. The Black Shirts had put decisive closure on the red biennium,
ensuring that Italy would not turn “red.” In the turbulence of postwar
Europe (Gerwarth 2016), this counterrevolutionary success drew atten-
tion across the ideological divide, and strong admiration from right-
wingers. Hitler, for instance, highlighted in 1942 that “without him
[Mussolini] Italy would today be Communist . . . He had the merit to hit
the inner force of Bolshevism for the first time decisively and thus to
demonstrate before the whole world that even in the 20th century one
could still give a people a national orientation” (in Picker 2009: 658).
Perceptive observers immediately saw the historical significance of
fascism’s triumph. A left-liberal aristocrat noted in his diary on October
29, 1922, immediately after Mussolini’s takeover:
In Italy the Fascists have attained power through a coup d’état. If they retain it,
then this is a historic event which can have unforeseeable consequences, not only
for Italy but the whole of Europe. It may be the first step in the successful advance
of the counter-revolution. Until now . . . counter-revolutionary governments have
still at least behaved as though they were democratic and peace-loving. Here a
frankly anti-democratic and imperialist form of rule gains the upper hand again.
In a certain sense Mussolini’s coup d’état is comparable (in the opposite direction,
of course) to Lenin’s in October 1917.
(Kessler 1999: 195)

Thus, keen international commentators understood the tremendous rele-

vance of fascism’s rise – as a crucial countermove to the Bolshevist
Revolution.
Mussolini exploited this historical potential and skillfully translated his
movement’s paramilitary victory into political success. His theatrical
“March on Rome” demonstrated the ease with which rightists could take
power and wipe away a decrepit democracy. With the help of continued
repression, Il Duce destroyed the socialists and outmuscled and intimi-
dated liberals and conservatives, including his erstwhile allies, who had
opportunistically backed his accession to the premiership. By the mid-
1920s, Mussolini had dismantled liberal democracy from the inside and
established a dictatorship that turned ever more totalitarian. He kept
economy and society in a stranglehold through state corporatism and
through government-controlled leisure-time organizations and youth
movements (Dogliani 2009: 186–94). Moreover, the Duce flooded the
media with a stream of propaganda that extolled his economic and
foreign-policy accomplishments (Melograni 1976: 231). After all, he
managed to (coercively) pacify a conflict-ridden society, promote
144 Persistence of the Communist Threat and Appeal of Fascism

economic development via state-led industrialization, and boost Italy’s

international clout and prestige (Hamilton 1971: 67–69; Gregor 1979;
Bosworth 2002: 227–52; Berman 2019: 227–32). Even a US political
scientist acknowledged “the very real and substantial achievements of
Mussolini” (Spencer 1927: 542).
Because the Duce “made Italy great again,” fascism came to appear as
far superior to liberal democracy and as an unassailable bulwark against
communism. Exactly as the Russian Revolution had activated the avail-
ability and representativeness heuristics and had elicited enormous atten-
tion, observers of all stripes were now struck by Mussolini’s new regime
model (Hoepke 1968: 12–15; Melograni 1976: 231–33; Bauerkämper
2006: 166–74). Hitler, for example, stressed in 1942 “that what the
Duce and under him fascism accomplished was unheard of, regardless
of whether one thought of the innumerable industrial ventures, the con-
struction of new schools and hospitals or the colonial projects” (Picker
2009: 658; see also 335–36). Similarly, Portugal’s ambassador in Rome
wrote hymnic reports praising fascist innovations, such as mechanisms of
plebiscitarian acclamation, systematic propaganda efforts, and organiza-
tions for social control (Lima 1935, 1937).4 A Brazilian observer was
equally awestruck, highlighting that “the Italy of today [was] purified by
the creative energy of Mussolini . . . the supreme architect of this resurrec-
tion” (Silveira 1934: 1).
Besides innumerable political officials, even from Britain (e.g.,
Melograni 1976: 233), many world-class writers, artists, and philoso-
phers highlighted Mussolini’s success, and quite a few admired or even
revered the Duce.5 While especially strong in Europe (D’Agostino 2012:
174), this attraction extended overseas as well. Mussolini had a substan-
tial fan club in Japan (Hofmann 2015) as well as in Paraguay (Seiferheld
2016: 105–7) and Peru (Guarnieri 2007: 94, 101, 132–36); even some of
Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s aides took inspiration from rejuvenated Italy
(Brands 2008: 374, 385; Pasetti 2019: 148–51).

4
His predecessor, however, made fun of Mussolini’s charismatic performances in an official
report: “[Mussolini’s] discourse in Milan was heard by an enormous and delirious crowd.
Mr. Mussolini always brings with himself an enormous and delirious crowd. With that
[crowd] he must have left today from Milan for Cremona. That crowd is part of his
luggage” (Castro 1934a).
5
Leading intellectuals of other countries also revered their domestic fascist leaders, such as
Romania’s Emil Cioran and Mircea Eliade (Ioanid 2009: 403), who after WWII achieved
considerable acclaim in European cultural circles.
 Emulation of Mussolini’s “March on Rome” – and Its Failures 145

  ’ “  ” – 

 

A Limited Wave of Imitation Efforts

Again like Lenin’s takeover in October 1917, which had stimulated a
wave of imitation efforts, Mussolini’s feat provided similar inspiration, in
this case for the extreme right.6 Initiating fascism’s transition from a
movement to a regime type,7 the March on Rome drew particular atten-
tion and admiration. Looking back after almost two decades, Hitler
regarded “the March on Rome 1922 [as] one of the turning points of
history. The fact alone that one can do that gave us a boost” (cited in
Picker 2009: 76). The leader of Romanian fascism, Corneliu Zelea
Codreanu (1939: 57), exulted when he “heard of the mighty fascist
upsurge: the March on Rome and the victory of Mussolini. I was so
happy about it as if it were a victory by my own fatherland.” In fact, a
publication sympathetic to his Legion of the Archangel Michael called
Codreanu “Romania’s Mussolini” (cited in Heinen 1986: 189).
Indeed, extreme rightists quickly jumped to conclusions about the
replicability of Mussolini’s feat. Like the Bolshevist revolution, this auda-
cious power grab activated the heuristics of availability and representa-
tiveness and propelled isomorphic imitation efforts as well. As the Italian
fascist had spearheaded the March on Rome, there were several actual or
planned “marches on” other seats of power, especially in Germany and
Hungary, yet with echoes and stirrings elsewhere. Even in France,
Georges Valois’ Faisceau were considering a Mussolini-style takeover in
1926.8 Due to these emulation attempts, leading expert Karl Dietrich
Bracher (1980: 118) speaks of “a first fascist wave [that] moved
Europe” during the early and mid-1920s (similarly recently Kallis 2016:

6
On the breadth of fascism’s appeal, see Hamilton (1971) and Schulz (1975: 284, 440–41).
On the “great enthusiasm and excitement” among Hitler’s entourage in Munich, see
Ludecke ([1937] 2013: 101, 117) and Weber (2016: 373); see also Cassels (1963: 146).
For German right-wingers more broadly, see Rosen (1957: 19) and Schulz (1975: 441–42,
453). For Spanish business people, see González Calleja (2005: 25–27). In turn, Germany’s
democratic government feared an immediate replication of the “March on Rome”
(Hoepke 1968: 266).
7
As Mussolini ([1932] 2018: 12–14) himself emphasized, fascism as a regime model and
“doctrine” was only fully developed after the takeover of power.
8
Levey (1973: 294–97); Soucy (1986: 185–88); Horne (2012: 229–30); on the Faisceau and
their inspiration in Mussolini, see also Carsten (1982: 79–80); Sternhell (1986: 91–118);
and Tumblety (2009: 511–12).
146 Persistence of the Communist Threat and Appeal of Fascism

305–9, 317–18). Indeed, like Lenin’s triumph, the March on Rome for
many years maintained its attraction as a model for fascist assaults on
power. In 1936, for instance, a fascist movement initiated a “March on
Budapest,” yet failed miserably to shake Hungary’s increasingly authori-
tarian regime (Szöllösi-Janze 1989: 107). In early 1938, when they had
achieved an electoral upsurge but faced a powerful hostile king, cadres in
Codreanu’s fascist movement considered emulating Mussolini’s example
as well (Sturdza 1968: 105–6). And in democratic Belgium, Léon
Degrelle’s far-right Rexists tried to organize a “March on Brussels” in
October 1936 (Capoccia 2005: 114).
In line with this book’s argument that reactionary moves were a
backlash to radicalism, imitation of the March on Rome went especially
far in Budapest and Munich, which in 1919 had suffered the most
traumatic experiments in revolution. Communist overhaul and red
terror had left behind strong counterrevolutionary sentiments and resent-
ments. As mentioned in Chapter 4, the sites of those disastrous
soviet republics had therefore turned into hotbeds of extreme-right con-
spiracies (for Munich, see Mommsen 2016: 198–203). No wonder
Mussolini’s feats fell on especially fertile ground and stimulated quick
replication efforts. Most importantly, Hitler turned into a prominent
fascist leader and undertook his first attempt on power in this setting
(Weber 2016).
Interestingly, by going farthest in Munich and Budapest, the iso-
morphic efforts to replicate Mussolini’s precedent displayed greater
selectivity than the radical-left attempts to emulate Lenin. A crucial
reason was the pivotal role that political organizations and state insti-
tutions played for these far-right initiatives. Whereas communist chal-
lenges often emanated from loose groupings, such as the Spartakus
League or the assemblage of anarchist intellectuals in Munich, fascist
power grabs counted on established elites, reactionary parties, and mili-
tary circles. And although the armed forces with their insistence on
discipline and uniformity differ in their internal decision-making from
broad-based, pluralistic parties, they do have some capacity for infor-
mation processing and deliberation, and therefore shy away from rash
adventures. Military reluctance and resistance, in turn, posed serious
obstacles to fascist plans to seize power. After all, reactionaries need to
enlist the armed forces in their fight against the radical left or at least
ensure their tacit approval, as Mussolini managed to do in Italy. Thus, the
military commands effective veto power over radical-right efforts to take
over the state.
 Emulation of Mussolini’s “March on Rome” – and Its Failures 147

Predictably, the armed forces were wary of fascist paramilitary move-

ments. While they appreciated violent thugs’ willingness to do the “dirty
work” of repressing the radical left, they feared for their own monopoly
over organized coercion. Moreover, fascism’s energetic bottom-up mobil-
ization and charismatic leadership threatened the discipline and hierarchy
that the armed forces hold dear. And the unconditional pursuit of millen-
arian ideological goals diverged from the military’s conservative deter-
mination to safeguard its own institutional integrity. While fascism was
by nature daring, the armed forces tend toward prudence. In particular,
they shy away from risky adventures such as precipitous power grabs
inspired by foreign experiences that may not fit domestic conditions.
As regards the Hitler Putsch of 1923, for instance, a decisive obstacle
to the Mussolini-inspired hope to trigger a “March on Berlin” was the
opposition of Reichswehr commander Hans von Seeckt. The general
certainly was a reactionary to the bone, whose monocle made him look
like a fossil from the Kaiserreich (photo and caption in Weitz 2007: 117).
In fact, von Seeckt harbored authoritarian plans himself, but sought to
use Germany’s multifaceted crisis of 1923 to achieve them in formally
legal ways: He expected that battered by fierce conflict with France,
hyperinflation, and communists’ revolutionary stirrings, the civilian
authorities would delegate him dictatorial powers (Vogelsang 1962:
41–44; Mommsen 2016: 184–85, 195; see documents in Deuerlein
1974: 190–91; Michalka and Niedhart 1980: 90–93).
As head of a longstanding state organization, however, von Seeckt
“was too realistic and hardheaded to believe in the many plots, ventures,
and dreams of the radical Right” (Weitz 2007: 116; see also Bracher
1980: 120–24; Mommsen 2016: 185, 194–95, 211). Precisely because
“his ambition was to restore the might of the army” (Weitz 2007: 116), he
wanted to keep the military out of day-to-day politics (Sauer 1978:
227–30), and therefore rejected Hitler’s overtures (Hanfstaengl [1957]
2005: 92). In particular, von Seeckt refused to cooperate in the Nazi
leader’s coup attempt, which he – based on the institutional capacities
and interests of the Reichswehr – regarded as ill-considered and overly
risky (Kershaw 2000: 204). Because the regional military commander in
Munich, infected by the radical-right milieu of the early 1920s, had an
ambiguous posture, Hitler did start his Mussolini-inspired plot. But when
the Bavarian military and police quickly pulled back, this bold gamble
collapsed (Kershaw 2000: 208–9).
In sum, whereas the isomorphic emulation efforts of the radical left
frontally attacked established elites and institutions, those of the radical
148 Persistence of the Communist Threat and Appeal of Fascism

right needed cooperation or at least acquiescence by those influential

forces. Because the powers-that-be commanded organizations that had
somewhat looser bounds of rationality, they were reluctant to rush into
adventures.9 Instead, they assessed the political opportunity structure
with greater realism. Therefore, they supported radical right-wingers only
when they saw special opportunities or severe threats. For instance, the
menace posed by the “red biennium” was crucial for Italy’s power holders
to back Mussolini’s fascism and accept his government takeover, as
Chapter 4 discussed. Due to the veto of establishment sectors, especially
the military, plans to follow in Mussolini’s footsteps advanced to actual
challenges only in a few settings, under more restrictive conditions than
the radical left’s revolutionary emulation efforts.

Fascist Emulation of Mussolini: Hitler’s and Gömbös’s Failed Attempts

In settings traumatized by revolutionary regimes, however, radical right-
wingers commanded significant political strength and seemed to have
some room for maneuver. These political novices and upstarts lacked
broad-based, strong organizations; instead, a welter of tiny parties, para-
military bands, and personalistic leaders competed with each other. As
these splinters were deficient in political experience and had low capacity
for information-processing,10 they operated with tight bounds of political
rationality. Because the representativeness heuristic held sway, right-wing
radicals overestimated the replicability of Mussolini’s success and rashly
inferred that they could pull off the same feat. They overrated the similar-
ity of their national political contexts with Italy and failed to consider that
Mussolini’s very success served as a warning for other rulers, making a
similar challenge less likely to succeed. Due to these miscalculations, the
isomorphic emulation efforts spearheaded by bottom-up fascist move-
ments suffered uniform failure – just like the equivalent attempts by the
radical left. Only a Mussolini-inspired power grab based on a different
strategy, namely a top-down military coup, achieved its goal, in Spain
in 1923.

9
Therefore, right-wingers in Lithuania abandoned the idea to grab power in early 1923, a
plan inspired by Mussolini’s recent success (Lopata 2001: 111–12).
10
Indeed, the reception of Italian fascism in Germany was mostly based on superficial
information; thorough studies of the new model were rare (Hoepke 1968: 133,
178–80, 304–14).
 Emulation of Mussolini’s “March on Rome” – and Its Failures 149

The most prominent effort to imitate the Duce occurred in Munich, a

city shell-shocked by the chaotic council republics of 1919 (Kershaw
2000: 109–16). Bavaria’s capital was the caldron of anti-communist
reaction in which “Adolf Hitler became a Nazi” (Weber 2016), turning
from a politically rootless soldier into a fanatical ultra-rightist. Mein
Kampf attributed this metamorphosis to the German revolution of
November 1918 (Hitler [1925] 2016: 549–57; Weber 2016: 12–13, 30,
102, 114–15, 139),11 which Hitler saw as a cynical move by the Jewish-
Communist world conspiracy to prepare its bid for total power (Hitler
[1925] 2016: 1321–33).12
Mussolini’s striking example then gave Hitler’s emerging leadership
among the extreme right an important boost.13 Observers came to see this
supremely gifted orator as “the Bavarian Mussolini” (Weber 2016: 353;
see 345–85). Indeed, Hitler now began to view himself as more than an
auxiliary “drumming up” support for other leaders; instead, he started to
act as the top leader whom Providence had anointed to become the savior
of his adopted fatherland. Thus, Mussolini’s success helped convince the
aspiring Führer that he was destined to fulfill the same redemptive mission
in Germany (Kershaw 2000: 180–84, 289). After all, the Duce had
demonstrated how an energetic and ambitious upstart could outmaneuver
established elites and engineer his own accession to power. Mussolini’s
precedent induced Hitler and his entourage to propagate a determined
Führerkult (cult of the leader), claiming supreme leadership on the right
side of the spectrum (Hanfstaengl [1957] 2005: 141; see Kershaw 1987:
20–31). For instance, Hitler overhauled his strategy for self-promotion.
Whereas he had long avoided any photographs to build a sense of
mystery, in October 1923 he commissioned official portraits in heroic
poses and mass-distributed these images on picture postcards (Weber
2016: 414–15).
Impressed by his Italian role model (Hoepke 1968: 125–28, 133),
Hitler plotted a replication by trying to organize a march on Berlin (see
Hitler’s statements in Deuerlein 1974: 213–14; see also Schulz 1975: 430,
Schieder 1996: 119–20; Ullrich 2013: 166; Weber 2016: 402). The

11
Weber (2016: 163–73) argues, however, that this inner transformation resulted primarily
from the Versailles Treaty imposed on Germany.
12
On the interwar right’s tendency to see Bolshevism as a Jewish conspiracy, see Beyrau
(2017: 76–77).
13
Evans (2003: 184–86). Hitler established contact with Mussolini before the latter’s
“March on Rome” (Ludecke [1937] 2013: 50–51, 57–60; see also 101, 108–9, 112,
114, 117; Hoepke 1968: 125, 133, 304; Schulz 1975: 427; Schieder 1996: 110–11).
150 Persistence of the Communist Threat and Appeal of Fascism

concentration of reactionaries in Munich and the Bavarian aversion

against Prussia’s social-democratic government seemed to offer good
chances for winning support for this emulative effort. Several other
right-wingers, some inspired by Mussolini’s power grab as well, were
considering similar projects (Röhm 1934: 226–28; Bracher 1980:
118–19, 124–15; Mommsen 2016: 210–16; background in Broszat
1993: 9–28). Moreover, in the course of 1923, the Weimar Republic
skidded from crisis to crisis, including France’s occupation of the Ruhr
industries, a punishing hyperinflation, and a new round of communist
rebellions in October.
Trying to strike before democratic forces could restore stability and
determined to establish his predominance over other conspirators
(Mommsen 2016: 211–14), Hitler boldly attempted to drag his hesitating
half-allies into a challenge against the national government. For this
purpose, he audaciously kidnapped Bavaria’s reactionary leaders and
pushed them to support his wild project (Deuerlein 1974: 192–96;
Bracher 1980: 125–28; Ullrich 2013: 172). But offended by this upstart’s
presumptuousness and his forceful arm-twisting, these civilian and mili-
tary officials refrained from supporting the adventure. Instead, they
mobilized police and military against the self-appointed Führer’s precipit-
ous power grab. When Hitler desperately tried to turn the tide through a
mass demonstration,14 this “March on the Feldherrnhalle,” a public
monument in Munich, suffered governmental repression (eyewitness
reports in Deuerlein 1974: 198–200). After an ignominious flight,
Providence’s presumed darling landed in jail (overview in Broszat 1993:
28–37).
The precedent of Italian fascism clearly encouraged Hitler’s emulation
effort.15 The Duce’s success was a crucial inspiration for the “Bavarian
Mussolini” and induced some elites and common people to support the
Führer, albeit with vacillations.16 The representativeness heuristic played

14
Interestingly, this daring move rested on Hitler’s hope to elicit widespread spontaneous
support (Mommsen 2016: 213–14). It thus bore striking similarities to the equally
delusional expectations of the Spartakus League when it initiated its armed assault in
January 1919.
15
Mussolini, however, refused to be associated with this harebrained scheme and kept his
distance from Hitler’s emissary in fall 1923 (Ludecke [1937] 2013: 107–14; see also
Cassels 1963: 148–50).
16
Ludecke ([1937] 2013: 65–66, 69). The Reichswehr’s head in Bavaria, for instance,
General von “Lossow spoke – presumably with Mussolini’s ‘March on Rome’ in mind –
in favor of a march on Berlin and the proclamation of a national dictatorship” (Kershaw
 Emulation of Mussolini’s “March on Rome” – and Its Failures 151

a decisive role by suggesting that efforts to follow Mussolini had good

chances of success. Yet once again, this cognitive shortcut provided
problematic guidance. In actuality, the constellation of political forces in
Munich differed greatly from Italy. Hitler’s fledgling party was much
weaker than Italy’s fascists in 1922: Whereas Mussolini had dominated
large regions through systematic violence and intimidation, Hitler failed
to control a single neighborhood of Munich. No wonder that Hitler’s
Putsch, which was “hastily concocted,” “rushed and improvised” (Weber
2016: 405, and Ullrich 2013: 169; similarly Kershaw 2000: 208, 213)
and which even the Führer and his early sympathizers later decried as
“improvised and premature” (Hitler quoted in Meissner 1950: 128) and
as “disorganized and amateurish” (Hanfstaengl [1957] 2005: 102; simi-
larly 109), quickly became an abysmal failure.17
In Hungary, radical right-winger Gyula Gömbös, who was being
marginalized by the non-fascist authoritarian regime imposed after the
downfall of the calamitous Soviet Republic (Lorman 2006: chap. 5),
organized a similar conspiracy and planned a “march on Budapest”
(Ránki 1971: 68). Immediately following the Duce’s March on Rome in
late 1922, this pro-fascist leader mobilized reactionary extremists in the
governing “Unified Party” and sought to win power from inside the post-
revolutionary regime. When this attempt foundered on opposition from
anti-fascist conservative elites, Gömbös decided to challenge the authori-
tarian incumbents frontally. For this purpose, Gömbös drew on contacts
with Hitler and other leading reactionaries in Munich and intended his
power grab to coincide with Hitler’s Putsch.18 Thus, inspiration from
Mussolini was reinforced by coordination with other isomorphic emula-
tors, showing the strength of diffusion from the Italian precedent.
On the day before the planned coup, however, Admiral Horthy’s
authoritarian regime uncovered these plans, cracked down, and prevented
an uprising (Sakmyster 2006: 137–38; see also Lorman 2006: 165). This
backlash shows that Mussolini’s example did not only have a stimulating
impact on potential imitators but also a deterrent effect on established

2000: 204; see Röhm 1934: 226–28). When Hitler precipitously started his coup attempt,
however, von Lossow backed out.
17
For the backlash against Hitler among the German right, see, e.g., Jackisch (2014:
173–75).
18
Nagy-Talavera (1970: 71–72); Rothschild (1974: 173); Sakmyster (2006: 135–37).
Gömbös had established these contacts to Munich-based reactionaries in earlier years,
trying to create a “White International” of anti-Bolshevist counterrevolutionaries
(Sakmyster 2006: 71–74, 81; see also Ludecke [1937] 2013: 102–3, 112).
152 Persistence of the Communist Threat and Appeal of Fascism

rulers, who forcefully suppressed replication. As the Bolshevist success

unleashed both diffusion and counter-diffusion, so the rise of anti-
Bolshevist fascism also exerted opposite effects; and as in that earlier
wave of crosscurrents, counter-diffusion driven by asymmetrical loss
aversion won the day. In Hungary – as throughout Europe during the
interwar years – conservatives feared radical leftism and kept it sup-
pressed through an authoritarian regime, yet they also disliked fascism
and used similar means to nip it in the bud. The abortive emulation in
Budapest thus demonstrates the complex ways in which diffusion and
counter-diffusion interact.

Authoritarian Inspiration from Mussolini: The (Temporary) Success

of Primo de Rivera
The only successful regime change inspired by Mussolini occurred in
Spain in 1923 – but it diverged from the fascist precedent in process
and outcome. When General Miguel Primo de Rivera imposed a dictator-
ship, he claimed “it was ‘Mussolini’s seizure of power’ that showed him
what he ‘ought to do’ in order ‘to save’ his own country” (Ben-Ami 1983:
71; see also 190–91; similar quotes in Rial 1986: 122; Mann 2004: 305;
see also Payne 1998: 100–2; Albanese 2016: 134–35).19 Indeed, the
Spanish king in late 1923 “introduced Primo to [Italy’s] King Victor
Emmanuel as ‘my Mussolini’” (reported in Rial 1986: 56). Due to this
inspiration, the Spanish dictator and his aides kept consulting with the
Duce over the years, for instance when planning to institutionalize their
autocracy through a new constitution (Payne 1999: 33–35, 37).
While Primo de Rivera followed the Italian precedent more faithfully
than Hitler and Gömbös by responding to widespread left-wing chal-
lenges, he deviated substantially from Mussolini in his strategy of taking
power and the regime he installed. Thus, Hitler and Gömbös undertook
isomorphic imitation attempts – and immediately failed. Primo, by con-
trast, adapted Italian lessons to Spain’s political conditions and achieved
considerable success (but his authoritarian regime decayed much faster
than Mussolini’s fascism). After all, in line with the organizational argu-
ment of this book, the Spanish general headed a military organization and

19
Similarly, General Manuel Gomes da Costa, who in 1926 overthrew Portugal’s flawed
liberal regime, claimed: “I will try [to install] a dictatorship shaped by the lessons of
Primo de Rivera and Mussolini” (Ditadura Moldada nos Ensinamentos de Primo de
Rivera e Mussolini 1926).
 Emulation of Mussolini’s “March on Rome” – and Its Failures 153

therefore faced looser bounds of rationality than Hitler, the personalistic

leader of an amorphous movement, and Gömbös, leader of an
informal coterie.
The political challenges that provoked Primo de Rivera’s coup resem-
bled Italy before Mussolini’s power grab. Similar to the biennio rosso,
Spain from 1918 to 1920 experienced a trienio bolchevique (Bolshevik
triennium) with labor unrest in industrial areas, especially Catalonia, and
fierce land conflicts in the agricultural South (Bernecker 2002: 184–86;
González Calleja 2005: 22–27; Lannon 2007: 144–45; Berman 2019:
165–66). While leftist agitation subsided after 1921, “obsessive fear of
revolution” persisted among “panic-stricken” status-quo defenders.20
Moreover, “strikes, labor violence, and other signs of discontent were
on the increase [again] in 1923” (Rial 1986: 37). Thus, like the rise of
Mussolini’s fascism, Primo’s coup was a reaction to sustained and
ongoing leftist contention. By contrast, Hitler and Gömbös plotted their
emulation efforts in settings traumatized by scary revolutionary experi-
ments, but after their definitive suppression.
But whereas Primo de Rivera followed Mussolini more closely by
extinguishing a radical threat, he diverged in his method of takeover
and, correspondingly, in the type of autocracy he instituted. As
Chapter 4 highlighted, Italian fascism arose from the bottom-up as a
paramilitary mass movement combating left-wing contention; violent
success in innumerable localities prepared the push for national power.
By contrast, Primo de Rivera executed a military coup from the top down
and then used state coercion to suppress conflict across the country
(Bernecker 2002: 186–89; Herold-Schmidt 2004: 392–98; González
Calleja 2005: 40–47, 53–62). Because Primo’s seizure of power rested
on hierarchical command over the military, he installed non-
mobilizational authoritarianism (González Calleja 2005: chap. 3). By
contrast, Mussolini and his paramilitary mass movement ushered in
dynamic fascism with totalitarian tendencies.
The structural reason for Primo’s different regime preference was
Spain’s low level of modernization. Accordingly, left-wing contention in
Spain had less intensity and a narrower geographic concentration than in

20
Quoted in Mann (2004: 305). Mann invokes the fading of contention to criticize Marxist
claims that Primo’s coup was a “functionally required” instrument in the class struggle.
Instead, he highlights the excessive, “unnecessary” intensity of conservative fears – which
this book explains by recourse to cognitive heuristics activated by the scary
Soviet precedent.
154 Persistence of the Communist Threat and Appeal of Fascism

Italy. Whereas the biennio rosso affected Italy’s whole North and the
poor South also saw land conflicts, Spain’s trienio bolchevique was more
confined to industrial Catalonia and rural Andalusia (Bernecker 2002:
184–86; Herold-Schmidt 2004: 387–88, 392–93); the whole heartland
around Castile, where conservative elites retained enormous clout, was
little affected. Moreover, left-wing contention in Spain diminished after
1921. Thus, while Italy and Spain faced similar radical threats, their
intensity, force, and persistence were significantly lower on the Iberian
Peninsula. Consequently, a lower dosage of autocracy – authoritarianism
rather than fascist totalitarianism – sufficed for extinguishing this threat.
Thus, the Duce’s Spanish admirer did not copy fascism, but imposed
an authoritarian regime (Ben-Ami 1983: 189–90; Albanese and Hierro
2016: 11, 14, 22, 35). Rather than using mass mobilization and paramili-
tary violence to subjugate society through totalitarian pressure, Primo de
Rivera governed with the hierarchical control and depoliticization typical
of authoritarian rulers. Yet despite these crucial divergences from
Mussolini’s fascism, Primo looked to Italy for specific institutions to
import. In particular, his government sought inspiration in the corporatist
system of interest representation designed in Rome (Rial 1986: 206–11;
Payne 1998: 102; Gónzalez Calleja 2005: 138–42, 154–58; Sánchez
Recio 2017: 200–4). Yet because Primo “was closer to the Social
Catholic Tradition” than to Mussolini’s novel ideology, his version of
corporatism “was different from the Italian one: not as totalitarian, more
plural and less compulsory” (Albanese and Hierro 2016: 20; see also
18–21; and Ben-Ami 1983: 292–93).
His reliance on hierarchical, non-participatory authoritarianism soon
came to haunt Primo de Rivera, however. When his attempt to institu-
tionalize the regime through a new constitution encountered widespread
resistance (Rial 1986: 117–19; Gónzalez Calleja 2005: 147–53), he
could not draw on fascist-style mass mobilization or systematic
violence to overcome opposition. The citizen movement and “apolitical”
party that he had promoted from the top down never elicited much
popular commitment.21 Instead, this “Patriotic Union was the most con-
fused initiative of a regime conspicuous for its contradictions” (Rial 1986:
105; see also Ben-Ami 1983: 153–55; Gónzalez Calleja 2005: 164–200;

21
In general, military dictators face notorious difficulties in stimulating popular involve-
ment from the top down and in institutionalizing political participation (Huntington
1968: 242–55).
 Conclusion 155

Riley 2019: 89, 94). Lacking firm and fervent support,22 Primo relin-
quished power in 1930 – a rare democratic transition during the interwar
years.
In conclusion, Mussolini’s success inspired Primo de Rivera’s dictator-
ship in Spain, but this autocracy differed substantially from the Italian
precedent. By installing authoritarianism rather than fascism, the
Spanish general charted a course taken by many reactionary leaders during
the interwar years. Although Italian fascism drew great admiration and
although right-wingers in other countries imported bits and pieces of this
model, they rarely copied full-scale fascism. Instead, they averted the per-
ceived threat of communism and avoided the risky dynamism of fascism by
imposing exclusionary, non-mobilizational authoritarianism.


This chapter has traced the political-ideological context of the dramatic
and costly regime struggles during the interwar years. By showing how
communism survived the brutal counterrevolution examined in
Chapter 4, and by demonstrating how fascism won broad and strong
appeal as the most powerful antidote to left-wing radicalism, the discus-
sion has elucidated the two poles of this “age of extremes” (Hobsbawm
1996; similarly Bracher 1982; Mazower 2000). How could liberal dem-
ocracy survive on the battleground among those millenarian visions,
which were diametrically opposed in ideological content, yet alike in
totalitarian fervor? And how would powerful status-quo defenders try
to safeguard their interests and values: by supporting liberal democracy,
ceding to one of the extremes, or seeking refuge in the strong arms of
conservative authoritarian rulers?
During the interwar years, the communist threat persisted, even after
radicals’ quick efforts to imitate the Bolshevist success had uniformly
failed. After all, the Soviet regime survived the civil war and turned into
the global promoter of revolution. Inspired by this success and supported
by Moscow, radical-left organizations came to operate across the globe.
In several nations, most prominently Germany, communists managed to
garner increasing support and became serious contenders for power. And
where repression induced them to employ clandestine tactics, the

22
As Chapter 8 highlights, Primo’s son José Antonio responded to his father’s political
failure by forming a fascist movement, the Falange (Payne 1998: 104–7; details in Payne
1999: chaps. 4–7).
156 Persistence of the Communist Threat and Appeal of Fascism

difficulty of assessing their true strength also fueled threat perceptions.

Right-wing and centrist forces therefore lived in continued fear of
communism.
The perceived danger of left-wing revolution made democracy look
weak. After all, liberal freedoms gave communists room for maneuver;
and where democracies imposed bans, their sneaky enemies adopted
subversive tactics. Because democracy did not manage to extirpate the
radical-left virus, stronger regime types that concentrated power and
used determined repression seemed necessary for averting the
communist menace.
Therefore, the new model of fascism looked like a promising antidote
to left-wing revolution. Consequently, a wide range of political forces, as
well as intellectuals, philosophers, and artists, fell under Mussolini’s spell.
Proving its defensive capacity by suppressing the radical contention
plaguing Northern Italy, this novel regime type seemed tailor-made for
the epic struggle against communism. By erecting a dictatorship sustained
by mass support and by seeking totalitarian control over society, fascism
promised to conjure the leftist threat definitively. Mussolini’s political
innovation therefore gained enormous appeal across the globe.
In a remarkable repetition at the opposite ideological pole, Mussolini’s
successful power grab also stimulated immediate emulation efforts, just as
Lenin’s bold takeover had done before. And just like the precipitous
uprisings unleashed by radical left-wingers, the urge among radical
right-wingers to undertake a “march on” their national capital ended
in striking failure, as the emblematic case of Hitler’s “Beerhall
Putsch” shows. Both of these sets of ill-considered adventures were
spearheaded by self-selected extremists whose ideological sects gave free
rein to cognitive shortcuts. While the dramatic Russian Revolution
activated the heuristics of availability and representativeness for radical
left-wingers, the audacious March on Rome similarly got radical right-
wingers carried away. The resulting deviations from standard rationality
inspired rash imitation efforts by both these groupings, which uniformly
ended in disastrous failure, as Chapter 4 showed for the extreme left, and
the present chapter for the extreme right.
Unfortunately, however, the victories of establishment forces in these
initial battles did not end the war over the grand ideological projects of
communism and fascism. Instead, like Lenin’s disciples, Mussolini’s fol-
lowers recovered from their early failures, adjusted their political
 Conclusion 157

strategies, and kept pursuing their totalitarian goals throughout the 1920s
and 1930s. Subsequent chapters analyze how the resulting conflicts
destroyed democracy in many countries. This examination begins
with the high-profile case of Germany, where the attempt to install
full-scale fascism exceptionally achieved success – with cataclysmic
consequences.
 6

The German Exception: Emulating Full-Scale Fascism

With the abysmal failure of the initial attempts to replicate the March on
Rome, the diffusion of fascism seemed to end faster than it began. As
Chapters 7 and 8 explain, despite the tremendous appeal of Mussolini’s
innovation, its spread as a full-scale regime faced enormous obstacles.
While many authoritarian rulers borrowed bits and pieces of the new
toolkit, they rejected the mobilizational dynamic of fascism and used
limited fascist imports, such as paramilitary movements and propaganda
agencies, only as instruments for fortifying their own exclusionary, non-
mobilizational type of autocracy. Thus, like communism, fascism as such
diffused very little during the interwar years.
The exception was of course Germany – and what a momentous and
consequential exception it was! Germany was unique in establishing full-
scale fascism; and it adopted a version more extreme than Mussolini’s
prototype. After taking power, Hitler proceeded in a more brutal and
tyrannical way than his Italian role model, whom he revered.1 Internally,
he quickly enforced comprehensive, thoroughgoing dominance, imposed
Nazi control over almost all societal groupings (Gleichschaltung), and
forged a more rigorous totalitarian system than the Duce ever did. And
internationally, he pursued the conquest of extensive Lebensraum in the
East and quickly built an aggressive military machine (see recently Snyder
2015). Why did Germany alone import fascism, and in such an uncom-
promising variant?

1
Schieder (1996: 73–75). Hitler kept “a monumental bust of Mussolini” in his office
(Kershaw 2000: 343). And Goebbels (2008: 448) gushed in 1930: “Magnificent, this
Mussolini! My big contemporary role model. On him one can lift oneself up.”

158
 The Dangerous Mix of Democracy’s Weaknesses and Strengths 159

    ’ 

 
The root cause of this unusual development was the odd combination of
weaknesses and strengths that characterized the Weimar Republic, as
analyzed especially by Detlev Peukert (1993: 33–51). Born from a par-
tially successful, partially aborted revolution, this democracy emerged
with serious birth defects but also important strengths. Reactionary
forces, which retained powerful institutional bastions, especially in the
military, the bureaucracy, and the judiciary, chipped away at democracy
and promoted authoritarian alternatives. But the Weimar Republic also
had many defenders, especially the well-organized Social Democratic and
Center parties and their affiliated unions. Their support for pluralist
democracy, demonstrated with a military coup’s defeat in 1920, ruled
out the coercive imposition of autocracy. After the failure of his own
coup attempt in 1923, Hitler therefore combated democracy with its
own means by building an energetic electoral movement, which ballooned
to overwhelming size in the Great Depression. Conservatives, by
contrast, lacked widespread, strong support and failed to decree authori-
tarianism from the top down in 1932 and to contain Hitler’s fascist
movement in 1933.
In other words, reactionaries were strong enough to undermine dem-
ocracy but too weak to install an authoritarian alternative. Democratic
parties were strong enough to prevent an authoritarian takeover for many
years. But paradoxically, democracy’s long resilience induced radical
rightists to emulate Mussolini’s mobilizational, totalitarian model of
autocracy and thus outflank both the democratic parties and their
authoritarian adversaries. What played into the Nazis’ hands was the
threatening prowess and subversive activism of Germany’s Communist
Party. After all, the “need” to crush the KPD was, together with anti-
Semitism and fervent nationalism, Hitler’s main plank for garnering mass
support and for winning acceptance from elites, including big business
and the military (Wirsching 1999: 514–17).
Thus, due to democracy’s very resilience, only the fascists, not the
conservatives, managed to replace liberal pluralism with their own regime
model.2 Tragically, because it took a fervent mass movement propelled by
a charismatic leader to overcome democracy, the successor regime was

2
Mann (2004: 358) perceptively highlights: “Though fascists did not believe in democracy,
it was vital to their success.”
160 The German Exception: Emulating Full-Scale Fascism

not demobilizational, moderately repressive authoritarianism, like most

other autocracies during the interwar years. Instead, what prevailed was
mobilizational, brutal totalitarianism. Indeed, because Weimar democ-
racy was stronger and more vibrant than Italy’s liberal regime and
because it therefore took Hitler much longer than Mussolini to gather
the requisite strength to overturn it, the version of fascism imposed in
Germany was fiercer and more totalitarian than the Italian original.
The structural root cause of this exceptional fascist takeover was
Germany’s higher level of modernization, compared with Eastern and
Southern Europe, where authoritarianism proliferated. Advanced social
mobilization underlay the relative strength of democratic organizations,
the limited command of conservative forces over popular sectors, and the
corresponding capacity of a fascist movement to win over millions of
rootless, “available” supporters. In the underdeveloped countries of
Eastern and Southern Europe, by contrast, liberal and democratic forces
remained weak and conservative elites controlled masses of people, espe-
cially via clientelism. In these “backward” settings (Janos 1982; Berend
1998), top-down authoritarian imposition could take hold and guarantee
sociopolitical stability, for instance by averting the perceived threat from
the radical left. In advanced Germany, by contrast, military coups and
exclusionary authoritarianism were no longer politically viable; only a
broad-based, comprehensive assault from the bottom up, which employed
quasi-democratic means, could install autocracy – in its totalitarian, fascist
variant. Hitler’s incredible charisma, attested even by critics,3 enabled him
to arouse this mass support (see reports by Goebbels 2008: 515–16, 622,
639–40, 765; see also Lepsius 1978: 61–65) while simultaneously main-
taining unchallenged control. This unusual coincidence of bottom-up
energy and top-down direction brought the only full-scale replication of
Mussolini’s regime model during the interwar years.

  ’  

Scholars have thoroughly documented the multiple fractures plaguing
Germany’s new democracy (e.g., Schulz 1975: 233–73; Bracher 1978:

3
Austria’s anti-Nazi right-winger Rüdiger von Starhemberg (1942: 82) reported after a
personal meeting: “As was his custom, he looked me straight in the face, and once again
I felt the extraordinary magnetism of his eyes. I fought against it. We had grown too far
apart for me to feel any great sympathy with him . . . How repulsive his face really, how
ugly his hands . . . And yet I could not be blind to something that I could only call attractive
and compelling.”
 The Weimar Republic’s Birth Defects 161

14–25; Peukert 1993: 32–34, 38–40; Evans 2003: 78–102; recent discus-
sion in Ziblatt 2017: 259–63). As Chapter 4 mentioned, radical-left
efforts to emulate the Bolshevist revolution induced mainstream social
democracy during the chaos of 1918/19 to forge an alliance with the
conservative army leadership and to enlist proto-fascist Freikorps. As a
result, the military never submitted to civilian control but retained con-
siderable autonomy (Sauer 1978: 212–39). During the crisis years after
1929, leading generals used this latitude to pursue their own political
projects, focused on rearmament and recuperation of Germany’s geopol-
itical strength. Because these goals found limited support among demo-
cratic parties, especially the SPD, the top generals started to move in
authoritarian directions. Moreover, the Freikorps’ brutality fomented a
climate of violence (cf. Broszat 1976: 132–33), which induced various
political parties and veterans’ organizations to create their own armed
formations. The resulting street battles spiraled out of control during the
polarization of the early 1930s. Germany’s descent into virtual civil war
(Goebbels 2008: 670–73, 708–11; see also Bracher 1978: 374, 381, 427,
484, 506, 542; Wirsching 1999: 575–94, 601–32008) then intensified
calls for restoring “law and order” – via non-democratic rule.
Moreover, repeated left-wing uprisings, their harsh suppression, and
continued radical agitation deepened the gulf between mainstream social
democracy and its communist enemies.4 This division limited the electoral
base of the SPD and hindered Weimar’s democratic parties from winning
a majority of votes. Moreover, when democracy faced growing reaction-
ary challenges in the early 1930s, old hatred kept the communists from
joining social democracy in its desperate efforts to sustain the tottering
regime and forestall Hitler’s triumph. On the contrary, the KPD directed
its worst attacks against the SPD as “social fascists” (Schulz 1975: 702–5;
Bracher 1978: 524, 534; Michalka and Niedhart 1980: 278–79; Bois
2017: 158; McAdams 2017: 232–33). In fact, on several occasions the
communists joined Hitler’s NSDAP in obstructing attempts to combat the
crisis and rescue democracy (Mommsen 2016: 433, 536–37, 582–83).
The KPD’s increasing use of violence and growing vote shares (Bracher
1978: 263, 297–98, 319, 323, 441; Wirsching 1999: 234–57, 428–30,
550–51, 582–84) also scared conservatives and centrists and made them
susceptible to appeals by reactionary and fascist forces.

4
Tragically, by suppressing radical uprisings, the SPD lost support on the left, but did not
win new backers among “bourgeois” groupings, which distrusted its self-proclaimed
Marxism.
162 The German Exception: Emulating Full-Scale Fascism

In sum, the early conflicts examined in Chapters 3 and 4 created lasting

fault-lines and distortions that made the Weimar Republic vulnerable
when the economic recovery of 1923 to 1928 was rudely destroyed by
the Great Depression. These fractures, combined with older weaknesses
such as German liberalism’s crippling defeat in the 1848 revolutions and
its cooptation by Bismarck, seriously jeopardized democracy’s survival, as
scholars have convincingly shown. Of course, in some form or other,
Germany’s new democracy shared such problems with many of the other
liberal regimes emerging in Europe after WWI. Those widespread diffi-
culties undermined civilian competitive rule across the region. But the
resulting autocracies diverged sharply; whereas most of Central and
Eastern Europe fell under authoritarian rule, only Germany adopted
totalitarian fascism. Why that unique outcome?

    ’ 

While facilitated by the birth defects of Germany’s new democracy, the
exceptional triumph of National Socialism originated – surprisingly – in
the very strengths that the Weimar Republic had as well. Although it
lacked the loyalty of the Kaiserreich’s mainstays, such as the military,
large landowners, and reactionary politicians, the regime inaugurated in
1918/19 commanded strong support from equally powerful sociopolitical
forces, especially the trade unions, the massive SPD, and the similarly
well-organized Catholic Center party. Commanding firm organizations,
these democratic forces had great resilience, as they demonstrated during
the crisis of the early 1930s, when they helped deter open violations of the
constitution and the installation of authoritarian rule.5 Moreover, large
numbers of citizens preferred democracy, as electoral results from 1919 to
early 1932 consistently showed. Moreover, the Weimar Republic enjoyed
unprecedented liberty and enormous vibrancy in society and culture. New
ideas flourished, creative experiments abounded, and cities like Berlin
were pulsating with energy (Weitz 2007: 11, 24–27, 42, 82). Many people
and groupings wanted to preserve this lively atmosphere and therefore
rejected any moves toward authoritarianism.

5
Advocates of authoritarianism made their most daring move by using their temporary
control of the national government in mid-1932 to remove Prussia’s social-democratic
administration. But because this “coup” was not formally unconstitutional, the SPD did
not respond with mass protests; instead, it appealed to the Supreme Court (Vogelsang
1962: 243–50).
 The Paradoxical Impact of Democracy’s Strengths 163

Due to the strength of democratic forces, a military coup in March

1920 failed miserably, running afoul of a general strike called by the trade
unions. The even quicker collapse of the Hitler Putsch confirmed the
unviability of armed assaults on power. Consequently, right-wing forces
learned that they could not overthrow democracy through a frontal
attack. As the failure of the authoritarian projects of the early 1930s
proved (see later), the open imposition of autocracy was infeasible in a
society as modern and pluralistic as Weimar Germany, where liberal-
democratic values commanded substantial support.
The new democracy’s resilience forced its most determined enemies to
combat it from the inside. Reactionary extremists noticed that they could
achieve success only by exploiting the political latitude guaranteed by
democracy; after winning power through elections, they could use it to
dismantle the electoral regime. This new, Machiavellian strategy disad-
vantaged Germany’s conservative forces: Their main power capabilities,
capital and coercion, were not easy to translate into votes. After all, in a
modern, mobilized society, where elite control through clientelism had
weakened even in the countryside, conservative parties faced difficulties
winning broad and firm mass support, especially from the ample lower
classes. Instead, the electoral route privileged new, more plebeian right-
wing groupings that employed brand-new campaign techniques and
demagogic rhetoric to appeal to the interests and values, passions and
resentments of broad cross-sections of the citizenry (Loewenstein 1935a:
579–82). Only such an energetic, dynamic mass movement could achieve
electoral prowess. Once its charismatic leader gained power in formally
legal ways, he could suffocate democracy in paralegal ways. Fervent
support from a mass movement also allowed and encouraged this leader
to impose deep, comprehensive control over state and society and thus
found a totalitarian regime.
Paradoxically, thus, the very strengths of the Weimar Republic induced
its mortal enemies to devise a political strategy that – when a severe crisis
turned democracy’s equally serious birth defects lethal – ushered in a non-
democratic regime that went far beyond authoritarianism in its profound
transformation of politics, its repression of rights and liberties, and its
extremist ideological project. Whereas authoritarian dictators monopol-
ize power, depoliticize society, and promote limited changes in cooper-
ation with established forces, fascist leaders are vastly more ambitious:
They pursue ideological visions with boundless energy, at enormous
political and human cost. Such a destructive – and quickly self-
destructive – regime arose in Germany due to the odd incongruence of
164 The German Exception: Emulating Full-Scale Fascism

the preceding democracy. The Weimar Republic was weak enough to fall,
but strong enough not to fall easily to an authoritarian coup; instead, it
took a massive totalitarian movement to bring it down – and replace it
with a brutal dictatorship.

      

As argued so far, the fractured, tension-ridden nature of Germany’s first
democracy created vulnerabilities and opened up some risks of autocratic
involution (while foreclosing other dangers such as military coups). But
vulnerabilities do not necessarily turn fatal; doomsday scenarios often
remain unrealized. What, then, were the driving forces that undermined
Weimar democracy and set the rise of fascism in motion? These moving
causes, which during the unusual opportunity created by the Great
Depression led to the unique replication of fascism, had international
and domestic roots and sources.
On the external front, the frustrated grab for European predominance,
the defeat in war, and the punishing Versailles Treaty instilled intense
sentiments of violated nationalism in wide segments of the population (see
now Smith 2020: 291–302, 327–42). The serious setbacks in inter-
national affairs, especially painful for a relatively new nation, activated
strong loss aversion (cf. Broszat 1976: 132) and prompted an urge for
recovery. After all, Germany’s demographic, industrial, and military
potential made a resumption of hegemonic ambitions feasible.6 Thus,
the country was in a structurally unstable, politically untenable geopolit-
ical position. Recently vanquished and now held down by the victors,
especially France, Germany was too strong and dynamic to accept its
prostration. Instead, many sectors were determined to shake off the
shackles of Versailles and restore Germany’s power.

6
Interestingly, Turkey, which also suffered defeat in WWI and large-scale dismemberment
thereafter, quickly recovered its national unity and international strength by winning the
brutal War of Independence (1919–23; see McMeekin 2015: part III). This striking success
drew considerable attention in Germany, including the nascent Nazi movement, which
came to revere Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as a role model (Bracher 1980: 124; Mommsen
2016: 213). As Ihrig (2014: chap. 2) highlights, Atatürk’s international success became an
important stimulus for Hitler’s 1923 coup attempt (similarly Hoepke 1968: 125–28;
Bracher 1980: 118). But with his March on Rome, Mussolini was the more important
inspiration for Hitler’s domestic political strategy (Hoepke 1968: 128; contrary to Ihrig
2014: 68, 70, 88, 91, 98). After all, Hitler tried to grab power as a politician like
Mussolini, not a general like Atatürk.
 Forces Driving the Rise of German Fascism 165

Internally, moreover, the threat from the radical left seemed to persist.
Domestic and international communists long focused their subversive
efforts on Germany as the decisive next domino in the world revolution.
Given the country’s strategic location, its advanced economy, and its
massive labor movement, a takeover in Germany was pivotal for the
progression of socialism. Revolution in Central Europe’s powerhouse
would trigger a chain reaction and doom capitalism across Europe.
Even after the decisive defeat of all isomorphic attempts to replicate
Lenin’s armed seizure of power,7 radical leftists, who joined the
Communist Party, therefore maintained their contestatory hyperactivism
throughout the Weimar years (Weitz 1997: 84, 158).
But like the Nazis after the failure of the Hitler Putsch, the communists
also readjusted their political strategy and decided to use liberal democ-
racy for advancing their totalitarian goals, as Chapter 5 explained. The
KPD began to participate in elections, tried to infiltrate the trade unions,
and mobilized for contentious street action. With over 350,000 members
(Angress 1972: 72–73, 85; Weitz 1997: 98), it became “the first mass-
based communist party outside of the Soviet Union” (Weitz 2007: 104;
similarly Priestland 2016: 92). The KPD achieved considerable success at
the polls, winning vote shares above 10 percent with a steady upward
trajectory after 1924 (see Bracher 1978: 263, 319, 323, 441; Bois 2017:
157). Its greatest triumph, with almost 17 percent in late 1932, made it
the third largest party, not far behind the SPD.
Moreover, the KPD engaged in innumerable public protests and armed
confrontations, especially with equally violent right-wingers (see minis-
terial report in Michalka and Niedhart 1980: 265–66; see also Weitz
1997: 161–71, 186–87; Evans 2003: 237–42, 265, 270). Even a former
party member, historian Detlev Peukert (1993: 153), admits that “the
KPD . . . played a considerable part in giving an increasingly violent turn
to the political quarrel at the end of the 1920s.” In fact, the Interior
Ministry in late 1931 saw a communist insurrection as a significant threat
for the coming winter (Patch 1998: 249).
Predictably, these contentious activities, together with the KPD’s elect-
oral successes, aggravated fears among right-wing and centrist sectors
(Evans 2003: 238, 240, 242, 299; Kershaw 2015: 210). The growing
danger that the radical left seemed to pose exacerbated doubts in the new
democracy. That the left-wing enemies of liberty took advantage of liberal

7
Eventually, this “putschist” strategy drew criticism even inside the KPD (Levi [1921]
2009).
166 The German Exception: Emulating Full-Scale Fascism

guarantees to promote the overthrow of the established order seemed to

reveal liberalism’s internal contradiction and congenital weakness.
Reactionary sectors among the citizenry and among Germany’s powerful
elites had never genuinely committed to democracy (Sontheimer 1978).
While some right-wingers came to accept the Weimar Republic for lack of
a feasible alternative (Vernunftrepublikaner = republicans and democrats
out of instrumental rationality), others used their resources and influence
to undermine the new regime, especially once the catastrophe of the Great
Depression seemed to offer opportunities for undemocratic machinations.
Of course, the specter of communism also played a major role in the
rise of the radical right. This perceived left-wing threat boosted the
NSDAP’s mass support and allowed it to win backing from economic
and political elites. Moreover, anti-communism was intertwined with
nationalism and anti-Semitism, forming a powerful syndrome of resent-
ments that held substantial mass appeal. After all, as disciples of Lenin
and followers of Moscow, communists looked like traitors par excellence
(Evans 2003: 240). Accordingly, Hitler ([1925] 2016: 1725) proclaimed:
“On the day that in Germany Marxism is broken, truly [Germany’s]
shackles will break for ever. For, never in our history have we been
defeated by the strength of our foes, but always only by our own failings
and by the enemies in our own camp.”
In reactionaries’ eyes, the prominent role of Jews among hard-left
leaders, as exemplified by Rosa Luxemburg and several activists of the
Munich council republic (Kershaw 2000: 114–16), also created a strong
association between anti-Bolshevism and anti-Semitism. Accordingly,
“Marxism and the Jew were synonymous in Hitler’s mind” (Kershaw
2000: 245; see also 243–46), as is amply evident in Mein Kampf (Hitler
[1925] 2016: 229–31, 615, 837–53, 873, 979, 1135, 1719; see also Jäckel
1981; Snyder 2015: 19–29). Thus, anti-communism was a crucial ingredi-
ent of the noxious cocktail that right-wing extremists served their audi-
ence (see, e.g., Jones 2014a: 91–92). In particular, it helped Hitler launch
his political career in Bavaria in the early 1920s (Evans 2003: 178, 197;
Weitz 2007: 98).
Hitler’s propagandistic self-promotion also shows the special appeal
that anti-communism held for the broader public. Because this gifted
orator provoked skepticism, if not rejection in “public opinion” with
his fervent anti-Semitism, attacks on Bolshevism looked politically more
effective. Therefore, in Mein Kampf, the Führer deliberately misrepre-
sented his own political trajectory. Whereas in 1918 and early 1919 he
had been rather indifferent, if not sympathetic to the revolutions in Berlin
 The Strategy and Advance of Germany’s Fascists 167

and Munich (Weber 2016: 11–13, 30–31, 81–86), he retroactively falsi-

fied his story by attributing his political awakening to the overthrow of
the Kaiserreich in November 1918. So cataclysmic was this earthshatter-
ing event that the temporary blindness caused by poison gas in WWI
recurred, as Hitler ([1925] 2016: 553–57) claimed. With this dramatic
twist, Hitler sought to depict himself as the left’s innate enemy – almost
victimized by the Munich soviet republic as well (Hitler [1925] 2016:
561). Because this account was clearly designed to boost the Führer’s
political support, it shows where he saw the strongest fears and resent-
ments that he could tap into – namely in anti-communism.

     ’ 

In this setting, Germany’s radical right ended up embracing the same
basic strategy for seizing power that the radical left had adopted after
the defeat of its early efforts to replicate Lenin’s armed power grab.
Because the equivalent attempts at the isomorphic imitation of Italian
fascism had failed as well, the extreme right came to pursue an insti-
tutional path and tried to advance its totalitarian goals through electoral
mobilization combined with street contention.
Hitler made this reorientation after the abortive coup of 1923. As this
disastrous failure induced even this fanatical ideologue to reflect, the
Führer realized that he had misunderstood the Duce’s success8 – a typical
product of cognitive shortcuts. As Hitler acknowledged later, “I followed
Mussolini’s example too closely.”9 Due to the availability heuristic, which
leads to the overestimation of dramatic events, he had attributed excessive
importance to armed fascists’ siege of Italy’s capital; and then the repre-
sentativeness heuristic had made him jump to the conclusion that such a
frontal attack would also work in Germany.10 But in fact, the March on
Rome was merely a bluff, not a violent conquest (Lyttleton 2004: 84–86;

8
Albanese (2016: 111–12) highlights the difficulty of understanding the March on Rome
and its success.
9
Quoted in Pese (1955: 123); very similarly Meissner (1950: 128); see also Schieder (1996:
120–21); Lyttelton (2004: 433); and Schieder (2017: 12, 21). Indeed, around the time of
the Hitler Putsch, Mussolini called the National Socialists “fools” (buffoni – quoted in
Rosen 1957: 37, n. 106).
10
After Mussolini’s success, one of Hitler’s close aides announced: “What a group of
courageous men managed to do in Italy, that we can do in Bavaria as well. The
Mussolini of Italy we have here as well. His name is Adolf Hitler” (quoted in Pese
1955: 120).
168 The German Exception: Emulating Full-Scale Fascism

Sassoon 2007: 9–15). As the last step in a comprehensive strategy, it

achieved success only after three prior accomplishments, namely electoral
advancement; violent control over good parts of the country; and the
systematic courting of established elites (Eatwell 2011: 173). In late 1923,
Hitler had lacked all three of these preconditions; no wonder that his
audacious coup collapsed quickly.
This big mistake eventually penetrated Hitler’s tight bounds of rational-
ity and forced the Führer, imprisoned after his failed coup attempt, to face
the actual constellation of power. In response, he revamped his political
approach and decided to take over the democratic system from the inside
(Bracher 1980: 129). In this way, he shifted to the complex strategy that
Mussolini had actually employed and that had brought success in Italy
(Schieder 1996: 120–22). Consequently, Hitler started to comply with legal
rules and to pursue the electoral route (Hanfstaengl [1957] 2005: 151–52;
see Schulz 1975: 590–98, 636–37, 676; Bracher 1978: 322, 332–33); yet at
the same time, he continued to send his violent shock troops into street
fights against their far-left enemies (Schulz 1975: 205, 368; Schieder 2017:
50). Moreover, like his Italian role model (see Sassoon 2007: 106–14), the
Führer sought support from and tactical alliances with conservative estab-
lishment forces – but only to make use of these dupes for his own ultimate
goals (Bracher 1978: 364–66; Schieder 1996: 119–21).
Thus, Hitler adopted an opportunistic, Machiavellian strategy of using
democracy to win power and then abolish democracy (see documents in
Deuerlein 1974: 328–37, 347–48, 350, 363; see also Loewenstein 1935a:
580; Evans 2003: 198–99; Weitz 2007: 342). As Joseph Goebbels announced
in 1928: “We are entering the Reichstag in order to supply ourselves in
democracy’s arsenal of weapons with its own weapons. We become
Reichstag deputies to paralyze Weimar democracy with its own assistance . . .
Mussolini entered parliament as well . . . We come as enemies! Like the wolf
irrupts in the herd of sheep, so we come” (quoted in Bracher 1980: 154;
similarly Hitler [1925] 2016: 895). With this sneaky effort to misuse liberty,
Hitler laid the groundwork for his later political success. While the Weimar
Republic’s stabilization after 1923 kept the Führer politically marginal for
years, the Nazi movement systematically acquired the capacity to pounce on
any opportunity that would open (Bracher 1978: 94, 111). That chance then
came with the Great Depression after 1929 (Lepsius 1978: 50–61).11

11
Hitler’s “legal” strategy faced opposition inside the Nazi movement, especially from the
paramilitary Stormtroopers (SA) (Kershaw 2000: 347, 349, 365; Turner 1996: 72–73),
 The Strategy and Advance of Germany’s Fascists 169

After his quick release from prison, Hitler remained handicapped by a

ban on speech-giving. Unable to reestablish his political leadership in the
public arena, he also faced difficulties restoring his autocratic authority
within his own movement and party (Schulz 1975: 364–419; Kershaw
2000: 259–79). But gradually, this skillful operator outmaneuvered
internal rivals and promoted unconditional loyalists who had fallen under
the spell of his amazing charisma;12 some underlings, like Goebbels,
revered their Führer like a god.13 As a tightly unified movement, the
NSDAP became the most dynamic, politically promising force on the
radical right. Consequently, it absorbed many of the fragmented group-
ings and splinters that had proliferated on the extremist fringe
(Sontheimer 1978: 279–83, 291; Kershaw 2000: 269, 297, 334). The
NSDAP thus stood ready to capitalize on the shattering impact that the
Great Depression would soon exert on conservative and liberal parties.
While Hitler’s personal predominance, the charismatic glue holding
the NSDAP together,14 precluded firm party institutionalization, other
Nazi politicians did manage to translate the fervent backing of his core
supporters (cf. Hitler [1925] 2016: 903–7, 919) into a comprehensive and
dense organization.15 Second-in-command Gregor Strasser built up a

whom the NSDAP leadership had difficulty containing (Goebbels 2008: 639, 681–82,
685). Moreover, it seemed to reach a cul-de-sac with President Hindenburg’s adamant
refusal in 1932 to appoint Hitler chancellor (Deuerlein 1974: 397–98, 405–6; Kershaw
2000: 374–75; Mommsen 2016: 489, 560–61, 587, 624, 630). Even after this seemingly
definitive defeat, however, Hitler refused to make another violent power grab through a
“March on Berlin” (Deuerlein 1974: 397, 402; Kershaw 2000: 400), which the SA
forcefully demanded (Vogelsang 1962: 262–63, 266, 309; Mommsen 2016: 504, 561,
583; see also Goebbels 2008: 681–82, 685).
12
Lepsius (1978: 61–68); Kershaw (2000: 294–302, 325–29, 346–51); Mommsen (2016:
388–89, 394–95). For personal accounts of conversions caused by Hitler’s charisma, see
Goebbels (2008: 260–67, 404) and Ludecke ([1937] 2013: 20–22, 111, 275–76).
13
Goebbels soon heightened this Führerkult (Kershaw 1987) to the maximum, attributing
to Hitler’s “supernatural” capacities true miracles (cf. Max Weber [1976: 140–41] on
charisma): “We have learned that Politics no longer is the art of the possible. What we
want is according to the laws of mechanics unattainable and unfulfillable. We know that.
And nevertheless we act on this insight, because we believe in the miracle, in the impos-
sible and unattainable. For us politics is the miracle of the impossible” (quoted in Schulz
1975: 404).
14
See especially Lepsius (1978: 61–65). Barely contained by Hitler’s supremacy, strong
tensions, resentments, and conflicts raged among leading party officials, as evident in
Goebbels’ (2008: 190, 197, 301–2, 385, 429, 478–80, 497 510–12, 606, 610, 694–96,
763) hateful diary entries.
15
For years, the NSDAP managed to combine charismatic personalism and bureaucratic
organization because Hitler focused on sloganeering agitation and electoral campaigning
while leaving command over the party apparatus to organization leader Gregor Strasser
170 The German Exception: Emulating Full-Scale Fascism

countrywide network of party offices and a broad gamut of specialized

organizations for women, youngsters, workers, small farmers, students,
and even specific professions.16 Marginalized young men and demobil-
ized Freikorps members were especially eager to join the party’s paramili-
tary formations (Schulz 1975: 487–91). In this way, the NSDAP appealed
to the whole citizenry and groomed innumerable local leaders. Therefore,
the NSDAP recovered from the failure of 1923 and steadily grew. “By
1928 the party already had over 100,000 members” (Mergel 2011: 434).
Its extensive organizational grid then managed to integrate the masses of
new members and cadres who flocked to the party after 1929. Whereas
many suddenly successful parties get overwhelmed by an enormous
influx, disintegrate, and decline – a risk that Hitler ([1925] 2016:
1483–85) highlighted in Mein Kampf – the potent combination of organ-
ization and charisma enabled the NSDAP to master this challenge.17
Because Hitler campaigned with general slogans and simultaneously
appealed to the widest range of specific interests, the NSDAP’s support
base was unusual in its social breadth (Kershaw 2000: 332–34). Its
competitors drew on a defined and therefore limited constituency, such
as workers, the middle class or Catholics; the corrosive impact of the
Great Depression aggravated this fragmentation, leading, for instance, to
the emergence of a homeowners’ party (Schulz 1975: 589; see Bessel
1991: 121–22). By contrast, the combination of nationalism and social-
ism, of reactionary and revolutionary themes, gave the NSDAP support
across the social pyramid. In fact, Hitler deliberately attacked the
worsening societal fragmentation and the class struggle incited by the
communists. Instead, he promised a solidaristic “people’s community”
(Volksgemeinschaft) (Kershaw 2000: 330–32),18 a communitarian appeal

(Mommsen 2016: 407). But the divergence erupted when Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher
sought to co-opt Strasser in December 1932. To assert his unchallengeable predominance,
Hitler destroyed Strasser’s power base by dismantling most of the organization built up in
years of patient efforts, which had allowed the party to absorb the mass influx of
members and voters after 1929 (Mommsen 2016: 610–15).
16
Schulz (1975: 367, 466, 483–85, 548–49); Bracher (1978: 94, 98, 106–10); Kershaw
(2000: 259, 270, 300–4, 333); Evans (2003: 207, 212–16, 229); Weitz (2007: 346);
Mommsen (2016: 389–94, 404–7, 415). The Nazis’ organizational scheme partly copied
the communist cell structure (Wirsching 1999: 449–51).
17
By contrast, Hungary’s fascist Arrow Cross movement, which won a striking vote success
in 1939 that equaled the NSDAP’s result of 1930, suffered a quick decline thereafter
because it lacked strong party organization and a countrywide network of offices (Rady
2014: 268).
18
These collectivist appeals harkened back to the potential for “mass totalitarian integra-
tion” (Peukert 1993: 49) that the public upsurge of patriotism at the outbreak of WWI
 The Strategy and Advance of Germany’s Fascists 171

to citizens’ craving for “belonging,”19 which was especially strong in the

Weimar years (Sontheimer 1978: 250–52). As its mass base swelled after
1929, the NSDAP indeed became Germany’s first Volkspartei (people’s =
catch-all party) (Peukert 1993: 27–40; Evans 2003: 225, 229, 257–58,
261; excellent contemporary analysis in Michalka and Niedhart 1980:
287–89).
This comprehensive social range gave the NSDAP a crucial advantage
over its right-wing competitors, which targeted particularly narrow
sectors. Whereas the reactionary German-National People’s Party
(Deutschnationale Volkspartei – DNVP), for instance, was heavily elitist
and drew predominantly from the upper crust and well-to-do middle class
(Beck 2008: 19, 24–25), the NSDAP, led by social upstarts, recruited
from the “little people,” including low-ranking employees, small farmers,
workers, and the unemployed (Falter and Hänisch 2013). By appealing to
the bottom of the social ladder as well, the party even drew supporters
away from the SPD and KPD. Consequently, it combated “Marxism” not
only through violent rhetorical and physical attacks (Schulz 1975: 220,
227, 359, 412–13; Wirsching 1999: 443–47, 461–62) but also by trying
to win over the left’s labor base – with some, albeit limited results (Schulz
1975: 721; Evans 2003: 263–65, 294–95). This broad popular
appeal gave the NSDAP great chances of electoral success and allowed
it to break through the threshold hemming in the right during the 1920s.
In turn, this majoritarian potential was crucial for beating democracy
with its own means. If Hitler could win power through electoral success,
then he could use this power to close down elections and establish a fascist
dictatorship.
Another advantage of the Nazi movement was its special appeal to
Germany’s youth.20 Many right-wing groupings, such as the reactionary
DNVP, exuded stodgy elitism and were run by older men who – besides
their ideological goals – pursued the economic interests of specific sectors,
such as big business (see the early experiences of Goebbels 2008: 90–91;
on the DNVP in early 1932, Goebbels 2008: 618–21). By contrast, the
NSDAP was plebeian, dynamic, “idealistic,” and led by fairly young

had revealed and that the myth of a tight soldiers’ community, forged at the front under
Ernst Jünger’s “thunderstorms of steel,” kept awake (Sontheimer 1978: 98–106).
19
On the underlying similarities with social democracy’s communitarian ethos, see Berman
(2006: 5–6, 13–17, 125–26, 148–51, 204–7).
20
Bracher (1978: 101–5, 124, 327, 350, 356); Kershaw (2000: 331, 335, 408); Evans
(2003: 207, 213–14); Mommsen (2016: 422–23, 445); for background, see also
Peukert (1993: 89–95); see in general Linz (1976: 33–40, 43–47); Mosse (1999: 13–14).
172 The German Exception: Emulating Full-Scale Fascism

newcomers.21 Accordingly, mixed in with its reactionary orientation, it

exuded an anti-elitist, “revolutionary” energy and employed strikingly
modern means, such as new communication and transportation technolo-
gies (Peukert 1993: 236–40; Weitz 2007: 347–49). All these features
attracted young people, including prominent students (Bracher 1978:
132–34; Kershaw 2000: 307–8; see also Broszat 1976: 135–37). Indeed,
the party deliberately targeted the new generation with its youth move-
ments, which in their emphasis on Hitler’s charisma subtly suspended
parental authority; moreover, they provided youngsters with a peer com-
munity and a strong sense of belonging (Kater 2004: 10–12, 16–18;
Dogliani 2009: 195–98).
In these ways, the NSDAP groomed growing circles of deeply commit-
ted, fervent supporters. These willing agents were a big asset in election
campaigns, which the party conducted with unprecedented, overwhelm-
ing élan. The Nazi youth also fought with great ferocity in street battles
with left-wingers, especially communists, which the NSDAP deliberately
provoked to reinforce the specter of the Bolshevist threat (Evans 2003:
266–70, 285; Mommsen 2016: 418, 502–5 531–36, 556).

     

Whereas Hitler used the second half of the 1920s to build up the
NSDAP’s political and organizational strength, his direct competitors on
the right suffered from underlying weaknesses (recently Ziblatt 2017:
chaps. 8–9). Initially, however, the gradual spread of reactionary ideas
gifted right-wingers considerable electoral success; for instance, the
nationalist DNVP became the second strongest party in 1924.
Moreover, the proliferation of Freikorps after 1919 gave rise to various
paramilitary groupings, especially the veterans’ movement Stahlhelm
(Steel Helmet). Interestingly, both DNVP and Stahlhelm were fascinated
by Mussolini and established direct connections to the fascist regime
(Hoepke 1968: 248–49, 272–76, 284–86, 288–93); the Duce, in turn,
who long dismissed Hitler as an excessively radical, marginal outsider,22
bet on those groupings to undermine the Weimar Republic and promote

21
The Nazis’ frenetic pace, driven by ideological dedication and absolute devotion to
Hitler’s charisma, is evident in the diaries of Goebbels (2008), who enjoyed few good
nights of sleep.
22
Mussolini only started to establish contacts with Hitler and his entourage once the
NSDAP achieved striking electoral success from mid-1930 onward (Goebbels 2008:
518, 607).
 The Weaknesses of Conservatives and Reactionaries 173

the spread of fascism (Hoepke 1968: 253–59; Schulz 1975: 621, 650–51;
Bauerkämper and Rossoliński-Liebe 2017: 9; see also Brüning 1970: 221,
434; Schieder 1996: 87, 93, 96–97, 102–7).
The DNVP and Stahlhelm commanded important assets. Ideologically,
they were standard bearers of determined anti-communism, a popular
plank (see, e.g., Jones 2014a: 91–92). Moreover, the party counted on
support from big business, East-Elbian landowners, generals, and high-
ranking bureaucrats. Beyond these elites, it also had substantial backing
among middle sectors, such as shopkeepers, professionals, and farmers
(Beck 2008: 19, 24–25). The Stahlhelm put tens of thousands of fighters
into the streets, at least for parades.
But the right also suffered from structural and organizational weak-
nesses (Mommsen 2016: 318–22; Ziblatt 2017: 279–83, 300–5, 315–18).
A crucial problem was increasing fragmentation (Schulz 1975: 280–81,
515–16; Bessel 1991: 121–22; Jones 2014b). Reactionary parties and
paramilitary groupings proliferated during the Weimar Republic, with
frequent internal splits and re-combinations.23 Consequently, their polit-
ical fate fluctuated greatly, as evident in the volatility of the DNVP vote:
After winning 20.5 percent in 1924, its vote share steadily decreased, to
5.9 percent in mid-1932. As this fluidity suggests, reactionary groupings
lacked firm societal bases and institutional discipline. Moreover, the
DNVP did not have the professional cadres that, for instance, Britain’s
Conservative Party boasted. Consequently, the DNVP was missing
the country-wide network of party offices that gave its British equivalent
such a comprehensive presence and guaranteed its electoral solidity
(Ziblatt 2017).
More basically, conservative and reactionary elites had lost the trad-
itional authority that upholds sociopolitical hierarchy in less developed
societies. During the nineteenth century in Germany, and during the
twentieth century still in more backward Eastern and Southern Europe,
established elites counted on popular deference and controlled common
people through longstanding mechanisms such as clientelism. Yet
Germany’s rapid modernization, industrialization, and urbanization had
eroded this “natural” verticality. The tremendous disruptions of WWI,
post-war turmoil, hyperinflation, and finally the Great Depression further
loosened people’s ties to their status-superiors. Therefore, conservative

23
On the DNVP, see Bracher (1978: 75–78, 276–78, 291, 299, 310–13, 363); Beck (2008:
30–82); Gasteiger (2014: 57–60, 64–65, 70); Jones (2014a: 83–85); Ziblatt (2017: chaps.
8–9).
174 The German Exception: Emulating Full-Scale Fascism

and reactionary elites no longer commanded automatic support and

lacked reliable instruments for marshaling and controlling the masses,
even in the East-Elbian countryside (Bessel 1991: 119–25; Broszat 1993:
114; Peukert 1993: 230–35, 260–61, 281; Mommsen 2016: 366, 382;
Berman 2019: 243–44).
Furthermore, right-wingers suffered from a fundamental dilemma.
Operating in the Weimar Republic with its exciting cultural vibrancy,
social liberation, and political freedom (Weitz 2007: 11, 24–27, 42, 82),
they sought to turn the clock back – but to what? Conservatism, strictly
defined, would certainly not work, because what these sectors wanted to
conserve no longer existed (Schulz 1975: 278–9, 282). What, then, did
they want to restore? The Kaiserreich had just collapsed, after the
Emperor and his top generals had suffered striking failure in WWI.
Moreover, the Second Empire had long looked politically untenable.
The electoral growth of democratic parties, especially the contestatory
SPD, had jeopardized a fairly authoritarian constitution that had kept the
government unaccountable to parliament. Thus, internal disjuncture and
tensions had abounded.
Because many reactionaries did not want to resurrect the Kaiserreich’s
incongruous regime, they developed an enormous variety of ideas, plans,
and institutional schemes. They also sought inspiration in foreign experi-
ences, especially Mussolini’s Italy with its corporatist projects, which the
DNVP and the Stahlhelm admired (Schulz 1975: 621, 650–51, 733–34;
Schieder 1996: 102–7; Evans 2003: 95; Mommsen 2016: 317).
Moreover, they updated – or retroactively “constructed” – legacies of
the German past. Their very disorientation became obvious in the much-
used slogan of the “conservative revolution” (e.g., Mommsen 2016:
369–73; see also Schulz 1975: 563–74; Herf 1984). More and more,
however, this ideological confusion gave rise to a toxic stew, fueled by
three sources of resentment and hatred, namely anti-Marxism, anti-
Semitism, and militant nationalism. While these basic elements were
shared (Weitz 2007: 333–42), shifting groups of reactionaries combined
them in diverse ways (Braatz 1971; Sontheimer 1978).
What this overabundance of odd ideas and projects was missing was a
political leader who could aggregate them and channel them into a project
for winning power. Consequently, right-wingers were longing for a
Führer who could fulfill this task (Sontheimer 1978: 214–22; see also
Bracher 1978: 16, 54, 122; Weitz 2007: 337–38). As the young Goebbels
(2008: 94; see also 90–91, 107) exclaimed: “We in Germany are lacking a
strong hand . . . Germany is longing for the One, the Man . . . Lord, show
 The Opportunities Arising from Severe Crisis 175

the German people a miracle! A miracle!! One Man!!!” Of course,

Goebbels would soon find his redeemer; and for Germany more broadly,
the NSDAP was offering a savior – if only the need for salvation
would arise.

     

This chance for a dynamic charismatic leader to mobilize large masses of
supporters and unify the right emerged with the Great Depression, which
shattered the socioeconomic and political stabilization achieved by the
Weimar Republic after 1923. The economic collapse hit Germany par-
ticularly hard (comparative data in Middleton 2016: 187–89; see also
Bracher 1978: 327, 344, 356, 385; Lepsius 1978: 50–61; Peukert 1993:
249–57; Weitz 2007: 122; Mommsen 2016: 439–50; Berman 2019:
245–46). Socioeconomic deprivation exacerbated interest conflicts and
political disagreements. Business and labor fought ever harder over the
worsening costs of the crisis, while large landowners clamored for protec-
tion and subsidies. The military insisted on resources for rearmament to
recuperate Germany’s international strength, whereas the SPD pushed for
using these funds to sustain the welfare state (Vogelsang 1962: 49–50,
56–57; Mommsen 2016: 514–16, 593).
Under these tensions, the Great Coalition ranging from the SPD to the
center-right German People’s Party (Deutsche Volkspartei – DVP) fell
apart in mid-1930 and proved impossible to resuscitate.24 Conservative
and reactionary politicians, business elites, and military leaders pressed
for a move to the right, which would advance their interests and causes
while undermining democracy and preparing a turn toward authoritar-
ianism. Reactionary President Paul von Hindenburg, a leftover of the
Kaiserreich supported by the ever more powerful army leadership,
entrusted this right-wing project to conservative center politician
Heinrich Brüning. Because the president and the new head of government
wanted to marginalize the left-wing SPD, they were prepared to employ
presidential decree powers, which the constitution reserved for emergen-
cies (Vogelsang 1962: 76–78, 100–1; Brüning 1970: 161–64, 182).25
Because without SPD backing the chancellor faced majority opposition

24
Contemporary analysis reprinted in Michalka and Niedhart (1980: 269–70); see also
Vogelsang (1962: 66–70); Patch (1998: 69, 82–88, 90–96); Mommsen (2016: 349–54).
25
Thus, Brüning and Hindenburg moved toward “delegative democracy” (O’Donnell
1994).
176 The German Exception: Emulating Full-Scale Fascism

in parliament to his orthodox adjustment measures, he called new

elections.26
But Brüning’s hope to extend his support proved illusory. On the con-
trary, his “responsible” austerity policies hurt the electoral prospects of
mainstream conservatives. The DVP, representative of big business, suffered
a stark drop, while the reactionary DNVP saw its vote share halved (Ziblatt
2017: 326–28). The severe crisis instead swelled the ranks of the fascist right,
which campaigned with wild promises and broadside attacks on the estab-
lishment (Linz 1976: 93–100; Patch 1998: 98–100). As the great winner, the
NSDAP achieved a stunning breakthrough with 18.3 percent of the vote,
which brought a nine-fold increase in its parliamentary delegation.
Because mainstream parties did not give Brüning a parliamentary major-
ity and because openly authoritarian solutions lacked sufficient support,
the government continued to rely on presidential decrees, increasing their
use over time (Ziblatt 2017: 319–24). Thus, the executive, sustained by the
president and the military (Vogelsang 1962: 184–85, 189, 198–99; Strenge
2006: 140), effectively took over the task of legislation, while the Reichstag
convened ever more rarely, acquiescing in its marginalization (Bracher
1978: 52–56, 301–8; Mommsen 2016: 434–37, 486). Even the SPD
begrudgingly embraced this parliamentary toleration to keep the NSDAP
out of power and thus “take care that Germany will not suffer Italy’s fate,
where fascism managed to triumph,” as SPD leader Rudolf Breitscheid
explained (quoted in Michalka and Niedhart 1980: 297; see Broszat
1993: 123–25; Berman 2006: 109–14).27 In light of the deepening
Depression, the party feared that Brüning’s ouster and new elections would
further strengthen the ideological extremes. After all, many unemployed
people joined the communists; and the NSDAP ceaselessly campaigned
among economically desperate farmers, shopkeepers, and small business-
men and among status-threatened employees and professionals.
As Brüning’s tough austerity kept aggravating the hardships, state and
municipal elections revealed growing left- and right-wing extremism; the

26
Brüning’s true intentions and ultimate goals remain unclear. Patch’s (1998) apologetic
analysis claims that Brüning did not pursue antidemocratic restoration – but the chancel-
lor mentioned this plan in his memoirs (Brüning 1970: 146, 194). Other historians
therefore draw a fairly authoritarian and reactionary picture of Brüning (e.g., Peukert
1993: 258–61; Weitz 2007: 122–23, 163, 351, 353; Mommsen 2016: 357, 382, 434,
490, 525).
27
Chancellor Brüning and military leader Kurt von Schleicher made some surprising
overtures to Hitler (see, e.g., Brüning 1970: 192–97), maybe partly to scare the SPD
and thus push it to tolerate Brüning’s government (Strenge 2006: 72).
 Conservative Authoritarianism or Fascist Totalitarianism? 177

NSDAP, in particular, increased its support by leaps and bounds, mostly

at the expense of the mainstream right, center-right, and even the protest-
ant liberal center (Broszat 1993: 113–14). By mid-1932, Weimar democ-
racy had lost majority support. About 15 percent of Germans chose
communism and its “dictatorship of the proletariat,” while 40 percent
preferred autocratic reactionaries; among those, one quarter embraced
conservative advocates of elitist authoritarianism, whereas the other three
quarters followed Hitler’s call for plebeian fascism.

   

?
With the political advance of reactionary forces, President Hindenburg
increasingly pressured Brüning to move to the right and eventually dis-
missed the hesitant chancellor in mid-1932 (Vogelsang 1962: 124–25, 185,
201–4, 208, 414–15, 459, 471; Patch 1998: 71, 220, 232, 238, 253, 269).
The principal holders of institutional power, especially Brüning’s aristo-
cratic successor Franz von Papen, President Hindenburg, the military lead-
ership, big business,28 and large landowners, now sought to replace the
hollowed-out democracy with some form of authoritarian rule. An exclu-
sionary, demobilizational regime was meant to marginalize the democratic
parties, especially the SPD, but also keep the NSDAP out of power. After
all, conservative authoritarians feared the Nazis’ totalitarian ambitions,
rejected their massive paramilitary violence, despised their rabble-rousing
demagoguery, and condemned their fanatical promises.29 Many took an
intense personal dislike to Hitler, whom Prussian aristocrat Hindenburg
loathed; consequently, the WWI Field Marshal long insisted that he would
never, ever, hand over government power to “the Bohemian corporal.”30

28
Contrary to Marxian arguments and class approaches (e.g., Rueschemeyer, Stephens, and
Stephens 1992: 109–11), big business did not have much political influence on democ-
racy’s downfall; leading generals and the camarilla around President Hindenburg were
crucial (see especially Turner 1985: 103–4, 228–29, 304, 346; also Mann 2004: 196–97).
29
For many years, even Hitler’s role model Mussolini did not bet on the NSDAP, but had
closer connections to less radical right-wingers (Schulz 1975: 429–30; Patch 1998: 186,
193). After all, Hitler’s fanaticism, which diverged from Mussolini’s willingness to
compromise with establishment forces (see Sassoon 2007: 106–14), seemed to preclude
a takeover of power.
30
Kershaw (2000: 371); see also Vogelsang (1962: 261, 264–65, 320–21, 376–79); Broszat
(1993: 152–53, 169); Connelly (2020: 253). Hitler’s Austrian birthplace, Braunau on Inn,
was often confounded with Braunau (now Broumov) in Bohemia.
178 The German Exception: Emulating Full-Scale Fascism

But how to deal with Hitler’s massive movement, which in regional

and national elections held from April to July 1932 averaged 35 to
40 percent of the vote? This upsurge turned the NSDAP into the largest
parliamentary party by far; together with the equally obstructionist
communists, it could paralyze legislative operations. The NSDAP also
commanded a potent paramilitary force comprising about 400,000
fighters by mid- to late 1932 (Kershaw 2000: 365, 410). The military
was reluctant to crack down on these Stormtroopers (SA) for fear of civil
war. After all, the communists might exploit such a conflagration and
unleash a two-front struggle. Moreover, ideological affinities among
right-wingers, centered on anti-communism and nationalism, had
allowed the NSDAP to win strong sympathies, even support, inside the
military, as the army leadership noticed as early as 1930 (Vogelsang
1962: 81–83, 90–91; Sauer 1974: 36, 39; Patch 1998: 138–39, 252;
Evans 2003: 248–49; Strenge 2006: 59, 74–76, 187–88; Mommsen
2016: 512–13). Consequently, would soldiers follow orders and attack
their fascist brethren, or would intense political loyalties make military
discipline crumble? For these reasons, the Reichswehr preferred to avoid a
conflict with the Nazi paramilitaries.31
The political, electoral, and military strength of Germany’s fascist
movement, which grew dramatically from 1930 to 1932, put the pro-
authoritarian conservatives who now held institutional power (Vogelsang
1962: 184–85, 189, 198–99, 450–57) before a difficult dilemma. While
they certainly did not want Hitler to seize power and impose his
unaccountable, totalitarian rule, they saw the Nazis – if properly tamed –
as useful auxiliaries for their own political projects. After all, the fascists
could help keep the dreaded communists at bay; Hitler himself advertised
this service to establishment sectors.32 Moreover, the NSDAP’s fervent
nationalism would unify the country domestically and help Germany
regain its international strength. And the SA constituted a reservoir for
the military, helping to evade the severe limitations on troop strength
imposed by the Versailles Treaty (Vogelsang 1962: 234, 446–49, 471–72;

31
Reichswehr leader Schleicher also feared that the suppression of the Nazi movement
would drive many members to the KPD, which he saw as the most dangerous foe, partly
due to its close USSR connections (Strenge 2006: 58, 77, 137, 165, 167, 172).
32
When appealing to elites, Hitler deliberately stressed his determination to destroy
“Marxism,” while downplaying his anti-Semitism (Kershaw 2000: 286–87).
Nevertheless, big business long maintained distance (Turner 1985: 88–89. 97–99, 113,
115, 127, 134–35, 170–71, 188, 216–19, 235, 244–45, 272–75, 279–88, 303–4, 312,
328–29, 341–43; Kershaw 2000: 357–59, 414).
 Conservative Authoritarianism or Fascist Totalitarianism? 179

Bracher 1978: 411, 426; Strenge 2006: 77–78, 98, 107; see also Brüning
1970: 160, 552–55).
Conservatives’ ambivalent position toward fascists, whom they sought
to keep under control, but also use for their own purposes, led in
Germany – like in many other countries – to attempts to coopt, domesti-
cate or divide the NSDAP (see Nolte 1987a: 206–12). This was the plan
of Reichswehr leader Kurt von Schleicher, who in 1932 turned into
Germany’s main political strategist (Vogelsang 1962: 129–30, 135, 185,
203–4, 256–58, 316–17, 325; Patch 1998: 220–24; Kershaw 2000: 366,
371). It was Schleicher who had persuaded President Hindenburg to
replace conservative Chancellor Brüning with reactionary Franz von
Papen (Mommsen 2016: 524). Drawing on Schleicher’s contacts with
Hitler,33 the new head of government then sought to obtain NSDAP
toleration or backing for his cabinet of stodgy elitists. Yet Papen’s con-
cessions to Hitler, especially the dissolution of the Reichstag, allowed the
NSDAP to make additional big advances. The July 1932 elections more
than doubled the Nazi vote share to a stunning 37.4 percent.
Hitler now claimed Germany’s chancellorship, invoking the precedent
of Mussolini, whom Italy’s king had installed because of the Fascist
movement’s political and paramilitary strength (Vogelsang 1962:
263–64; Schieder 1996: 122; Knox 2007: 380). But President
Hindenburg brusquely rejected this bid, calling the aspiring dictator on
his antidemocratic goals (Vogelsang 1962: 479; Deuerlein 1974: 397,
similarly 406). In response, the Nazi leader frontally attacked von
Papen’s reactionary “cabinet of the barons” (Goebbels 2008: 667, 672,
687, 691, 704; see Beck 2008: 74–76), betraying his informal dealings
with the conservative establishment, especially the Reichswehr leadership
(Vogelsang 1962: 189, 196, 200, 205–6, 209, 233, 459; Strenge 2006:
95–101, 105–10, 118–20, 131–35, 150–51).
The July elections also resulted in further gains for the communists,
which scared conservatives and even centrists (Nolte 1987a: 203). The
antidemocratic forces of KPD and NSDAP now held a “negative major-
ity” in parliament, which paralyzed decision-making. As the radical right
and the radical left fed on each other’s advance, democracy fell to the
clash of revolutionary and counterrevolutionary projects. The Papen
government was now denuded of political support (Mommsen 2016:

33
Schleicher had held several secret meetings with Hitler and back-channeled sensitive
information to the NSDAP (Goebbels 2008: 612, 643–44, 650, 652, 657–58,
663–64, 667).
180 The German Exception: Emulating Full-Scale Fascism

526–27, 530–31, 548–49),34 suffering a catastrophic defeat on a no-

confidence motion by an unprecedented 42 vs. 512 votes (Kershaw
2000: 386).
This setback made it impossible for Chancellor Papen to continue his
predecessor Brüning’s approach of governing with presidential decree
powers under Reichstag toleration. Having few options left, he deviated
from Schleicher’s plan to draw the NSDAP into governmental responsi-
bility and instead tried to marginalize the fascists and to replace democ-
racy with exclusionary authoritarianism. For this purpose, he intended to
overhaul the constitution to erect an autocratic “new state” with an all-
powerful presidency and an appointed second chamber.35 In diverging
from Italian fascism (Schotte 1932: 54), elitist Papen sought to institute
non-mobilizational, hierarchical authoritarianism, similar to the Estado
Nôvo (new state) that Portugal’s dictator António Salazar was preparing
to impose.36 To facilitate this openly antidemocratic project (Braatz
1973), Papen destroyed the last major power base of Germany’s demo-
cratic parties by dislodging the SPD-led government of Prussia and having
a reactionary ally appointed as presidential commissar (Vogelsang 1962:
238–50; Broszat 1993: 147–50).37
But an open violation of the democratic constitution and imposition of
authoritarianism required military backing. The Reichswehr leadership,
however, lacked confidence that it could maintain control over both the
radical left and the radical right (Broszat 1993: 155–56, 160; Kershaw

34
Big business, however, strongly approved Papen’s reactionary approach, while keeping
distance from the NSDAP, which relentlessly attacked this project (Turner 1985:
272–91).
35
Schotte (1932: 45–48, 54–56, 65–70); Braatz (1971: 575–78, 583–84); Bracher (1978:
56, 462, 465, 468, 471–79); see also Vogelsang (1962: 200, 210, 271, 305); Kershaw
(2000: 372, 379, 384); Mommsen (2016: 549, 559, 565, 577–80).
36
Mussolini had also proclaimed a “Stato Nuovo” (Gentile 2005: 175–77), but Papen
lacked the mass base that had allowed the Duce to establish his dynamic, totalitarian
fascism; instead, Papen drew support exclusively from elite sectors, just like Portugal’s
Salazar. Chapters 7 and 8 offer in-depth analyses of many instances in which non-
democratic admirers of Italy’s fascist leader installed non-fascist, typically authoritarian
dictatorships.
37
Because democracy was already severely weakened, the main democratic parties, includ-
ing the SPD, which had governed Prussia as a democratic bastion throughout the Weimar
years, lacked the strength and will to offer determined resistance to this coup (Meissner
1950: 237–38) – as the party and its unions had done in facing down the Kapp Putsch in
1920. One reason for this omission was the threat from the Nazi paramilitary formations,
which were eager to “defend the state” against a “Marxist uprising.” The mass
unemployment caused by the Great Depression also hindered use of the strike weapon
(Mommsen 2016: 540, 544–46).
 The Failure to Coopt Fascism 181

2000: 396; Strenge 2006: 92, 168–70, 186–88). Fascists and communists,
which together commanded majority support, were likely to protest
against exclusionary autocracy, maybe in coordination, as suggested by
Nazi support for a tumultuous KPD strike in Berlin in November 1932.38
Moreover, the downfall of Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship in Spain in
1930 (see Chapter 5) indicated the fragility of military-based rule (Strenge
2006: 18; see also 123, 203). Last but not least, General Schleicher did
not want to fight the Nazis, but use their paramilitary formations to
reinforce the army. Indeed, he had for years sought to tame the NSDAP
and attract what he saw as its responsible wing to form a government on a
solid basis (Strenge 2006: 13, 77, 97–98, 107; Mommsen 2016: 547–48,
558–59, 590). Because the military therefore refused to back his openly
unconstitutional, antidemocratic project,39 the isolated Papen fell in late
1932.
The effort to install reactionary authoritarianism thus failed in
Germany (Bessel 1991) – contrary to many countries in Eastern and
Southern Europe, as Chapters 7 and 8 show. The top-down imposition
of exclusionary, demobilizational autocracy seemed too risky in a modern
society, where a mobilized citizenry gave elitist conservatives little sup-
port. Instead, in a severe crisis many people followed the siren calls of
militant radicals of the left or especially the right (Peukert 1993: 264–71,
280–81). Therefore, the authoritarian project’s failure did not bring the
resurrection of the emasculated, suspended democracy, but paved the way
for mobilizational, fascist totalitarianism.

    

Desperate to break the political deadlock, Reichswehr Minister Schleicher
now took the helm. Noticing that the Depression had finally bottomed
out, he sought to win broader support for governing with presidential
decrees by stimulating economic recovery, especially with an ambitious
jobs program. This move sought to attract Germany’s unions as well as
the self-proclaimed “socialist” wing of the Nazi movement (Strenge 2006:
185, 199, 204–8; Mommsen 2016: 586, 593, 596, 601–5). The political

38
Goebbels (2008: 709–12); see also Strenge (2006: 164–65). For joint actions by com-
munists and Nazis over the years, see Bracher (1978: 442–43, 505, 516, 535, 564, 595).
39
Papen (1952: 246–50); Vogelsang (1962: 377, 385, 388–89, 392); Bracher (1978:
589–91); Mommsen (2016: 588–93).
182 The German Exception: Emulating Full-Scale Fascism

conjuncture looked propitious for this cooptation effort. After all, the
NSDAP had for the first time in years lost many votes in the Reichstag
elections of November 1932, causing serious concerns in the ranks and
exacerbating tensions among the leadership.40 Hitler, in line with
Mussolini’s advice of “no compromises” (cited in Knox 2007: 383),
stubbornly insisted on grabbing full government power. But another wing
of the NSDAP was eager to join a coalition government lest the party’s
electoral fortunes decline further (Wirsching 1999: 586–87; Mommsen
2016: 610–16). Cunning Schleicher courted this current’s leader, Gregor
Strasser (Kershaw 2000: 395, 399; see Vogelsang 1962: 275, 328,
340–43, 361, 365–67). By dividing the NSDAP, the new chancellor
hoped to keep Hitler out of power and govern until economic recovery
would deflate the Nazi movement and move German politics into calmer
waters again.
While trying to domesticate the Nazi movement in order to use its
energies for his nationalist and militaristic goals, Schleicher was also driven
by a new concern. He feared that if left in the political wilderness, the
NSDAP could quickly decay and disintegrate, leaving millions of discon-
tented rootless people available for communist mobilization.41 After all, the
KPD won its highest-ever vote in the November elections, whereas the
NSDAP declined significantly. This new downward trend shook up the
heterogeneous, faction-ridden NSDAP with its notoriously volatile support
base.42 What if millions of disaffected citizens switched their protest vote
and fell for the wild promises of communism (Schildt 1995: 391–92)? The
specter of a surging KPD, which Schleicher had long regarded as the main
enemy, gave his plan to absorb many Nazi followers added urgency
(Strenge 2006: 58, 77, 137, 165, 167, 172). Thus, the fear of communism,
which this book highlights, played an important role as well.
For these reasons, the new chancellor pursued the unusual project of
forging an ideologically encompassing “transversal front” of trade

40
Goebbels (2008: 715, 717). While strongly supporting Hitler’s intransigence, Goebbels
knew that the Nazi movement depended on continued forward momentum and that
setbacks seriously jeopardized its cohesion (Goebbels 2008: 553, 629–30, 637, 677–78,
691).
41
Observers of various stripes foresaw this possibility. E.g., in 1931 a leading SPD politician
expressed the fear that the communists would benefit the most from the likely decline of
the NSDAP, which he saw as a volatile protest movement (Schulz 1975: 674–75).
42
Whereas the NSDAP won millions of new voters after 1929, it also lost many again in
subsequent elections (Childers 1984: 50–53). Thus, the mass base of this catchall party
fluctuated greatly.
 The Failure to Contain Fascism 183

unions, the Strasser wing of the Nazi movement, and various paramilitary
formations.43 But the SPD vetoed participation by the socialist unions
(Vogelsang 1962: 329, 338, 350). Moreover, Hitler’s unchallengeable
dominance prevented the NSDAP from dividing and left Strasser isolated
(Goebbels 2008: 728, 731–32, 734–37, 741, 744–53). Schleicher’s cross-
cutting alliance therefore failed to materialize (Schildt 1995: 404–13).
Moreover, Schleicher’s turn to economic state interventionism and his
overtures to the unions displeased big business and large landowners, who
distrusted the self-styled “social general” (Turner 1985: 304–8). While
Germany’s economic elite had long disliked Hitler and opposed his single-
minded quest for power,44 the military chancellor’s sudden turn to the left
now made some entrepreneurs wonder whether the Nazi leader was, per-
haps, the lesser evil (Mommsen 1979: 125–28, 133–34; Neebe 1983:
155–56).45 Because Schleicher failed to win new supporters but antagonized
the powers-that-be,46 his government fell even more quickly than Papen’s.

    

How could Germany finally get a viable government again? To cope with
urgent problems, such as the ongoing economic crisis and the looming
threat from the growing KPD (Patch 1998: 283–85; see also Kershaw
2000: 405–9), the protracted stalemate between the conservative estab-
lishment and the fascists had to be overcome. The main stumbling block
was Hitler’s mass-based veto power, which had caused Papen and then
Schleicher’s downfall (see Kershaw 2000: 379–80). As Goebbels (2008:
726) gloated, “One will have to resort to us, because another solution of
the crisis is impossible.”47 Although the Nazi movement had started to

43
Meissner (1950: 251–52, 257); Vogelsang (1962: 328–29, 337–38); Strenge (2006:
173–80, 185, 199, 204–8); Mommsen (2016: 586, 594, 601–5); see also Goebbels
(2008: 658, 689).
44
See the definitive analysis by Turner (1985: 88–89, 97–99, 113, 115, 127, 134–35,
170–71, 188, 216–19, 235, 244–45, 272–75, 279–88, 303–4, 312, 328–29, 341–43).
45
Because the military leadership, President Hindenburg, and his entourage made the main
political decisions (Turner 1985: 103–4, 228–29, 304), big business did not play an
important role in Hitler’s Machtergreifung, however (Turner 1985: 314–26, 346).
Turner’s exceedingly thorough research corrects earlier suggestions, for instance by
Bracher (1978: 600, 603, 606), which attributed some influence to business interests.
46
The political impasse that felled Schleicher becomes evident in the cabinet debate docu-
mented in Michalka and Niedhart (1980: 350–54).
47
During this time, Nazi leaders also had significant contacts among Mussolini emissaries
(Goebbels 2008: 736–37).
184 The German Exception: Emulating Full-Scale Fascism

lose support, the main decision-makers, which the marginalization of

parliament confined to a reactionary coterie around President
Hindenburg (Turner 1996: 166, 168, 178–82), concluded that the only
realistic – and formally constitutional – option lay in sharing government
responsibility with the NSDAP (Meissner 1950: 265, 271; Berman 2019:
249–50). Hitler’s unshakeable condition was, however, to become chan-
cellor. Most of Germany’s political and economic elites, starting with
President Hindenburg (Vogelsang 1962: 376–79), who grasped Hitler’s
totalitarian intentions, continued to have serious concerns about this
risky prospect.
Because there seemed to be no way around the powerful Nazi leader,
however, the presidential entourage begrudgingly agreed to a deal that
sought to minimize the threat posed by Hitler’s chancellorship. In the new
government of January 30, 1933, conservatives headed most important
ministries; and of course, they controlled powerful bastions in state and
society, namely the presidency, the military, the commanding heights of
the economy, and the mainstream media.48 In these ways, the powers-
that-be hoped to contain and domesticate Hitler, his fervent mass move-
ment, and his paramilitary forces.49 Moreover, they expected that gov-
ernment responsibility would induce the Nazi leader to shelve many of his
outrageous slogans and promises (cf. Strenge 2006: 78, 107, 116, 220);
throughout history, many other originally radical forces – not least the
SPD, especially after the Kaiserreich’s collapse in late 191850 – had
moderated and become “reasonable” when taking over governmental
decision-making and administration. Hitler skillfully played to these
expectations by appearing to back off from his demand for total power
(Meissner 1950: 254–55, 261) and by accepting a cabinet with minority
NSDAP representation. Therefore, the appointment of the largest party’s
leader, who suggested he would seek a parliamentary majority (cf. Turner
1996: 150–51, 158–59), looked less risky and undemocratic than the

48
Schieder (2017: 16–17) suggests, though without strong evidence, that one reason why
conservative elites trusted in this containment strategy was the precedent of Mussolini,
who even after his consolidation of dictatorial power faced constraints arising from
Italy’s king, the military, and the church.
49
Fascinating discussion among right wing leaders quoted in Michalka and Niedhart (1980:
357–58); see also Kershaw (2000: 419–21).
50
See Patch (1998: 221). The expectation that the NSDAP would moderate in government
was widespread in the early 1930s (Meissner 1950: 231; Deuerlein 1974: 340–41;
Strenge 2006: 57, 98; Mommsen 2016: 433, 519; see also Vogelsang 1962: 445;
Turner 1996: 22). Foreign observers, such as the London Times (Deuerlein 1974: 388),
shared this view.
 The Failure to Contain Fascism 185

alternative being considered,51 namely the return of ex-chancellor Papen,

whose stark political isolation would have required the imposition of an
openly authoritarian regime.52
But the expectations of containing the Führer’s dictatorial ambitions
were quickly revealed as illusions. After all, Hitler ensured that his pal-
adins controlled Germany’s interior ministry and Prussia’s powerful state
police. Moreover, with Schleicher’s downfall, a general with Nazi sympa-
thies took over the Reichswehr Ministry: “[Hitler] is very content with
him,” Goebbels (2008: 758) confided (see also Vogelsang 1962: 375;
Sauer 1974: 46–56; Kershaw 2000: 443; Mommsen 2016: 634). The
new chancellor thus had considerable control over state coercion. By
contrast, the ministries occupied by conservatives, such as economy and
finance, could not hinder Hitler’s quest for total power. Goebbels (2008:
757–58) dismissed these appointments as insignificant: “Those are cos-
metic mistakes (Schönheitsfehler)” that “have to be erased.” Indeed, the
conservative cabinet members immediately disagreed among each other,
losing all capacity to tame Hitler (Broszat 1993: 201–6). Thus, the new
chancellor faced little effective constraint from his conservative cabinet.
Hitler also bested his reactionary allies through mass mobilization, as
demonstrated by the six-hour-long (!) parade of his jubilant supporters
upon his appointment, the beginning of a revolution for Goebbels (quoted
in Michalka and Niedhart 1980: 360; see Bracher 1978: 635–36).
Moreover, the Stormtroopers unleashed a wave of officially condoned
violence (Bracher 1979: 116–18). Most importantly, Hitler persuaded

51
Turner’s (1996: 170–71) claim that there was another option, namely a military dictator-
ship as a viable alternative to Hitler’s chancellorship, seems unpersuasive. As internal
documents (cited e.g., in Bracher 1978: 639) make clear, the military leadership was
extremely reluctant to sustain a government that lacked a political basis, fearing a general
strike – perhaps supported by both communists and Nazis – if not a civil war (see also
Vogelsang 1962: 375, 377, 385, 388–89, 392; Mommsen 2016: 631, 634). Moreover,
President Hindenburg had lost trust in General Schleicher, who in late November
1932 blocked Chancellor Papen’s dictatorial plans by alleging the military’s incapacity
to withstand a civil war, yet who in January 1933 claimed the opposite (Vogelsang 1962:
373, Strenge 2006: 214–18). In general, Hindenburg, despite his reactionary contempt for
democracy, felt bound by his oath on the Weimar constitution and was unwilling to
embark on an openly unconstitutional experiment. What made the appointment of Hitler
acceptable to the president was the formal constitutionality of a cabinet that commanded
a near-majority in parliament and that claimed to seek additional support from the
Center Party (Mommsen 2016: 630–32, 637).
52
Meissner (1950: 260, 265, 271); Vogelsang (1962: 373, 382–84, 386, 388–89, 491–92);
Bracher (1978: 628, 632); Mommsen (2016: 625, 631–32, 637, 639). In fact, Goebbels
(2008: 754–55) threatened, “If Papen comes back (to the chancellery), there will be a
revolution within two months.”
186 The German Exception: Emulating Full-Scale Fascism

President Hindenburg to call another election – which he promised to be

the last one, ever. . . (Michalka and Niedhart 1980: 357; similarly
Goebbels 2008: 759). In this contest, the fired-up NSDAP, now in control
of the government, was bound to achieve major gains. In sum, Hitler
quickly shredded the apparent straightjacket that conservatives had
imposed. Dynamic fascism easily overpowered the advocates
of authoritarianism.
In line with this book’s backlash argument, the Führer invoked anti-
communism to prepare his ruthless push toward fascist totalitarianism
(Broszat 1993: 205; Nolte 1987a: 33–38). NSDAP propaganda attacked
primarily “Marxism” and depicted the March 1933 elections as a choice
between Bolshevism and National Socialism (Goebbels 2008: 759,
763).53 Accordingly, Stormtrooper terror targeted the communists
(Sauer 1974: 236–42; Kershaw 2000: 409, 439–43, 453–55). Thus, the
Nazi leadership counted on deep fears about the radical left, which were
indeed widespread among elites and citizens. To justify his quest for
concentrated power, Hitler promised extinguishing any revolutionary
threat – through totalitarian hyper-mobilization rather than authoritarian
demobilization.
In retrospect, these fears of “Marxism” appear vastly exaggerated.
Historian Hans Mommsen (2016: 559 and 535), for instance, bemoans
“a widespread psychosis” and “a truly neurotic-looking anti-
Communism, which had gripped broad segments of the middle-class
(‘bourgeois’) public” by 1932. Similarly, Kershaw (2015: 210) marvels
at the “panic at the growing support for the Communist Party . . . and the
wildly exaggerated prospect of a communist revolution [that] had gripped
the middle classes.” The cognitive mechanisms highlighted in this book
can account for this excessive anxiety. As the KPD “had 6 million voters”
while “for the Russian Revolution fifty thousand Bolshevists had been
enough” (Deuerlein 1974: 366), the representativeness heuristic fueled
fear. Heuristic shortcuts held special sway given the existential uncer-
tainty caused by years of devastating socioeconomic crisis, escalating
sociopolitical turmoil, and institutional drift. In this “phase of extreme
political disorientation” (Mommsen 2016: 581; see eyewitness reports in
Deuerlein 1974: 354, 411; also Vogelsang 1962: 278), people faced
enormous difficulty making sense of fast-changing events. Therefore,

53
Hitler used similar anti-Marxist appeals to cement his support among the military
leadership (Michalka and Niedhart 1980: 372).
 The Failure to Contain Fascism 187

citizens and even organizational leaders resorted heavily to the inferential

mechanisms of bounded rationality.
NSDAP leaders carried this anti-communism to the extreme by inter-
preting and framing the arson attack on the Reichstag in late February,
which a lone former Marxist probably perpetrated (Kershaw 2000:
456–58, 731–32 n. 112), as a systematic communist attempt to incite a
nationwide uprising (Bracher 1979: 119–27). Hitler and his confidants
used the Reichstagsbrand to crack down on the left and whip up mass
support (Beck 2008: 107–12). As Goebbels (2008: 769) exulted, “Now
we can go for it all!” Yet notwithstanding this immediate political usage,
ample evidence suggests that top Nazis sincerely believed their own
conspiracy theory and were genuinely frightened (Goebbels 2008: 768;
see also Kershaw 2000: 457–58; Beck 2008: 107–82008). An eyewitness
from the police, for instance, “found the Reich Chancellor [Hitler] in a
near-hysterical state” and “thought that the whole atmosphere resembled
that of a madhouse” (Kershaw 2000: 458). This panic reveals how deep
the fear of communism was that gripped the radical right and helped drive
its totalitarian plans, as a central argument of this book claims.
The Reichstagsbrand and its political exploitation by the Nazi leader-
ship heightened to a fever pitch citizens’ anxieties about the communist
threat (Beck 2008: 3, 28, 110–12), which helped boost the NSDAP vote
share to 43.9 percent, enough for a seat majority in the Reichstag in
coalition with the reactionary DNVP. This success, in turn, allowed
Hitler to install his dictatorship with formally legal means. Under strong
pressure, parliament passed a broad “law of empowerment”
(Ermächtigungsgesetz) in March 1933 (Ermakoff 2008), the juridical
foundation for the Nazis’ totalitarian autocracy (Broszat 1969: 99–117;
Bracher 1979: 222–36).
Certainly, however, Hitler complemented this apparently constitu-
tional dismantling of the constitution with plenty of illegal terror. While
Jews suffered discrimination and harassment, the initial outburst of vio-
lence was targeted mostly at the “Marxist” parties KPD and SPD and
their trade unions (eyewitness reports in Kessler 1999: 445–49; see also
Ermakoff 2008; 61–69, 215–16). Yet strikingly, even the NSDAP’s right-
wing coalition partners as well as established elites, including business
and the state bureaucracy, faced intimidation and even repression (Beck
2008: 3–5, 11–12, 88, 129–38, 228–33, 236–42). Culminating its long-
standing attack on “traditional hierarchies and conservative values”
(Beck 2008: 155; see 299–303), the Nazi movement destroyed any
remaining constraints and grabbed absolute power. Reaching beyond
188 The German Exception: Emulating Full-Scale Fascism

the political arena, it imposed forceful control over major societal organ-
izations (Broszat 1969: 117–29, 180–218; Bracher 1979: 247–69,
279–98; Turner 1985: 335–36; Beck 2008: 233–36). Finally, in mid-
1934, Hitler consolidated his totalitarian dictatorship by purging his
own movement, assassinating the Stormtrooper leadership and other
reactionary rivals (Broszat 1969: 267–73; Sauer 1974: 324–64; on popu-
lar approval, see Kershaw 1987: 84–93).

    (-)

   
Germany thus became the only country that fully emulated the Italian
precedent by instituting a fascist regime. Indeed, Hitler went beyond his
role model Mussolini by quickly imposing unadulterated totalitarianism
and by preparing for aggressive imperialism, which soon incinerated
much of Europe and eventually consumed his own dictatorship. Why
was German fascism so extreme?
One facilitator was Germany’s economic and military potential, which
eventually enabled Hitler to conquer half of Europe, whereas the
Duce failed to defeat poor Greece (Clogg 2002: 118–19). Its energetic
drive to restore Germany’s international power helped the Nazi move-
ment win domestic support for its rise, government takeover, and
regime consolidation. For instance, a principal reason why General
Schleicher refused to repress the Nazi paramilitary formations was
to use them in rebuilding the army. In general, the NSDAP’s
insistent demands and the Hitler government’s determined and initially
successful efforts to undo the humiliation of Versailles, secure Germany
hegemony in Europe, and pursue territorial expansion in the East
were crucial for ensuring that the Führer received backing from reaction-
ary politicians, established elites, and growing parts of the citizenry,
probably a substantial majority by the mid- to late 1930s (Kershaw
1987: 124–29).
Conjunctural factors also helped Hitler win increasing support, which
he used to pursue his totalitarian vision. When he became chancellor,
recovery from the Great Depression had begun. His government boosted
this upswing through massive economic expansion, targeted mainly
toward rearmament and war preparation. The resulting drop in
unemployment brought relief to the long-suffering population and cor-
roborated the Führer’s charisma. Combined with his accomplishments on
the international front, this success, which was much more striking than
 Conclusion 189

Mussolini’s achievements, strengthened his support as well as his dicta-

torial clout. Hitler therefore had the latitude to push toward full-scale
totalitarianism, concentrate power through repression such as the mas-
sacre of the SA leadership, and advance his ambitious ideological goals,
especially the conquest of Lebensraum in the East.
Most importantly, however, the difficult trajectory of the Nazi move-
ment led to the iron totalitarianism and combustive dynamism of Hitler’s
regime. As this chapter argued, Germany installed fascism, not authori-
tarianism, because Weimar democracy was hard to topple and because
exclusionary, top-down autocracy proved unviable in this modern, mobil-
ized polity. It took a fascist movement of mushrooming size to take over
democracy from the inside and then install a particularly potent dictator-
ship that marshaled and controlled mass involvement through charis-
matic leadership. In fact, facing innumerable obstacles during his
lengthy effort to take power, Hitler built up a fervently committed, highly
energetic fighting machine that – once he became chancellor – quickly
steamrolled all political and institutional constraints, took total control of
politics and society, and then unleashed a world war and unprecedented
genocide. Precisely because the Nazi leader needed much longer than
Mussolini to win office, he forged a movement that was significantly more
powerful and overwhelming than the fasci. Therefore, Hitler managed to
push his fanatical goals to the extreme, domestically and internationally.
Whereas Mussolini continued to face political limitations even as a dicta-
tor, as his eventual eviction by Italy’s king shows, the Nazi leader com-
manded unlimited power (as the old elite’s inability to eliminate him on
July 20, 1944 confirms) and used it to the fullest, with disastrous
consequences.


Germany was the only democracy during the interwar years that emu-
lated Mussolini’s new regime model and installed full-scale fascism.
Despite the widespread admiration for this powerful antidote to com-
munism, no other country followed the Duce by instituting right-wing
totalitarianism. As this chapter shows, the German exception arose from
the Weimar Republic’s combination of weaknesses and strengths. The
fragmentation of democratic forces, the persistent power bastions of
reactionary elites, and the exaggerated fear of communism created pro-
found vulnerabilities and brought the emasculation of democracy during
the Great Depression. Temporarily, reactionaries sustained by President
190 The German Exception: Emulating Full-Scale Fascism

Hindenburg and the army leadership had the upper hand. But the fragility
of conservative influence and the mobilization of the citizenry precluded
the imposition of exclusionary, hierarchical authoritarianism, as
happened in many backward countries of Eastern and Southern Europe
and Latin America.
Conservative weakness allowed for the advance of fascism (see recently
Ziblatt 2017), and democracy’s strength paradoxically induced Hitler to
chart a course that in the end allowed him to win office in formally legal
ways. After all, Weimar did not fall to his Putsch of 1923, which
attempted the isomorphic emulation of Mussolini’s March on Rome.
Hitler therefore embraced mass mobilization and elections and sought
to defeat democracy with democratic means – complemented, however,
by paramilitary violence, especially against “Marxists.” Conservatives’
lack of command over large population sectors allowed for the explosive
growth of this plebeian fascism during the crisis of the early 1930s. After
reactionary groupings around President Hindenburg had marginalized
the SPD, its stunning electoral success gave the NSDAP virtual veto power
over government formation. Once efforts to bypass, coopt, or divide the
fascist mass movement failed, those reactionaries reluctantly installed
Hitler, trying to tame and contain his totalitarian ambitions. But the
boundless energy of his fervently committed followers allowed this cha-
rismatic leader to push aside all safeguards and barriers and quickly
impose a totalitarian dictatorship. Thus, Hitler finally succeeded in
following his much-admired role model Mussolini. The sinuous route he
had to take, however, made the German variant of fascism much fiercer
and more extreme than the Italian original.
Inadvertently, mainstream right-wingers had paved the way for a
fascist regime that diverged substantially from their own political prefer-
ences. By using their institutional power, often inherited from the
Kaiserreich, conservative elites undermined democracy and thus facili-
tated the fascist takeover. While wary of the Nazis’ plebeian radicalism,
they hoped to use this mass movement for fostering their own goals,
especially the elimination of the communist threat and the recovery of
Germany’s geopolitical weight. But boosted by the fallout of the Great
Depression, the fervent energy of fascism overpowered these establish-
ment forces. Thus, while the institutional strength of reactionary elites
pushed Germany toward autocracy, the political weakness of these reac-
tionary elites, especially their feeble mass support, enabled Hitler to
outflank them and replace the battered democracy with a totalitarian
dictatorship.
 Conclusion 191

The two factors highlighted in this book, namely the deterrent example
of Bolshevism and the attractive model of Italy’s fascism, played import-
ant roles in Germany’s descent into right-wing despotism. Anti-
communism, which the Nazis fused with anti-Semitism, boosted support
for conservative and reactionary forces and in turn fueled right-wing
hostility to democracy. Dialectically, the perceived threat from the KPD,
which grew stronger during the early 1930s, drove citizens into the arms
of the NSDAP and prompted established elites to acquiesce in Hitler’s
appointment as chancellor. After all, the NSDAP seemed useful for com-
batting the radical left; and plans to combat the radical right foundered
on the fear that the communists would take advantage of such a conflict
for their own revolutionary causes. Thus, concerns initially aroused by
the Russian Revolution contributed in important ways to fascism’s
advance in Germany.
Mussolini’s success in destroying the left and his new recipe for build-
ing an unassailably strong regime also played a significant role. The
Italian precedent provided a powerful inspiration to Hitler and his sup-
porters, including reassurance during the lean years from 1924 to 1928.
As the fascist dictator commented, “the Brown Shirt [Nazi uniform]
perhaps would not have appeared without [Mussolini’s] Black Shirt”
(cited in Picker 2009: 76). As a decisive start, Mussolini’s example of
1922 encouraged this marginal demagogue to claim leadership as the
Führer and pursue a predestined mission as Germany’s savior. After the
isomorphic imitation of the March on Rome had led the young NSDAP
into a cul-de-sac with its premature coup in 1923, a more careful assess-
ment of Mussolini’s systematic, multipronged way of winning power
helped to inform Hitler’s embrace of a (pseudo-)legal strategy. Over the
years, the Nazis kept looking up to fascist Italy, trying to establish
contacts, and receiving advice during their final advance in 1932. Thus,
although the causal weight of Mussolini’s example is difficult to measure
(Goeschel 2012: 489), it contributed in several ways to the unique instal-
lation of National Socialism in Germany (comprehensive recent analysis
in Schieder 2017).
German conservatives failed in their opportunistic efforts to employ
the fascist mass movement for their own, more limited goals. Once they
had begrudgingly handed over government power, their desperate
attempts to domesticate and contain Hitler proved strikingly unsuccess-
ful. Interestingly, however, similar initiatives succeeded across Southern
and Eastern Europe during the interwar years. Because in those nations
where liberal democracy fell, conservatives won the contest with fascists,
192 The German Exception: Emulating Full-Scale Fascism

through cooptation or repression, there was a massive wave of authori-

tarian rule. While many victorious conservatives admired Mussolini and
while numerous authoritarian regimes imported elements of fascism, such
as propaganda agencies and paramilitary youth organizations, they did
not emulate the new model as a full-scale regime. How fascism contrib-
uted to these breakdowns of democracy, and how authoritarianism pro-
liferated – rather than fascism! – is the topic of the next two chapters.
 7

The Spread of Fascist Movements – Yet of

Authoritarian Regimes

After Chapter 5 highlighted the tremendous appeal of Mussolini’s new

fascist model, Chapter 6 explained why Germany, inspired in part by the
Italian precedent, installed full-scale fascism. National Socialism took
hold because in this modern country conservative elites had limited
control over the mass population and therefore lacked the clout to impose
their preferred regime, authoritarian rule, to replace the democracy that
they had battered (Peukert 1993). Instead, a mobilized citizenry allowed
for the dramatic rise of a fascist mass movement that overwhelmed the
conservative elites. Profiting from the Great Depression and invoking the
perceived threat posed by a growing communist movement, Hitler’s
energized party completed the destruction of liberal pluralism and went
so far as to impose harsh totalitarianism.
By following Mussolini’s path all the way and installing a fascist
dictatorship, the Central European powerhouse remained the exception,
however. The reactionary regime type that spread in Eastern and
Southern Europe and in Latin America during the interwar years was
not mobilizational totalitarianism, but de-mobilizational authoritarian-
ism (Pasteur 2007: 7–9, 81–82, 205–6). No other country in the world
imported true fascism on its own initiative; only Germany’s geopolitical
hegemony and temporary military prowess allowed for the creation of
some fleeting fascist regimes in Eastern and Southeastern Europe during
WWII. Even the Austrian autocracy of 1933–38, which scholars have
labeled as some type of “fascism with adjectives” (cf. Collier and Levitsky
1997), such as clerical fascism or Austro-fascism (e.g., Tálos 2013;
Wiederin 2012: 41), “was far from a fascist regime” with its stodgy

193
194 The Spread of Fascist Movements

Catholic corporatism.1 Indeed, regime founder Engelbert Dollfuß made a

point of avoiding the fascist label and doggedly resisted strong pressures
from Austria’s international protector Mussolini, who pushed hard for
the emulation of his novel regime model.2 Thus, what proliferated during
the 1920s and 1930s was not totalitarian fascism but conservative
authoritarianism (Payne 1995; Linz 2000, 2002).
Why this wave of authoritarian regimes? What was the impact of the
causal factors emphasized so far, namely fear of communist revolution
and – as a reaction – appeal of the fascist counter-model? While clearly
not the only cause of the interwar reverse wave (as Chapter 2 explained),
the scary specter of the extreme left played a basic role by shaking
precarious liberal and democratic regimes. In particular, this widely
shared dread is crucial for explaining the wave-like nature of authoritar-
ianism’s spread. After all, this reactionary riptide swept up winners and
losers of WWI (e.g., both Romania and Hungary); old and new countries
(e.g., Spain and the Baltics); polities with serious ethnic conflicts and
contested borders, and those without (e.g., Yugoslavia and Portugal).
A common denominator in this tremendous diversity was the perception
of left-wing threats, exacerbated by the frequently clandestine approach
of communist subversion and the promotion of this extremism by the
powerful Soviet Union.
Certainly, fear of left-wing radicalism was often wildly exaggerated.
The availability and representativeness heuristics led many sectors to
overrate the significance and replicability of Lenin’s stunning success.
Blown out of proportion by cognitive shortcuts, the frightening Russian
precedent sent shivers down the spine of conservative and even centrist
groupings. A wealth of evidence suggests that many of these threat
perceptions were genuine and sincere, reflecting real fears, as Chapter 5
documented. Certainly, some actors also sought to foment this panic for
strategic reasons, propagating manipulated information and worrisome
rumors to advance their self-interests or ideological causes. But this
instrumental usage of the communist scarecrow achieved its effect only

1
See recently Botz (2014: 141); Botz (2017: 165); see also Peniston-Bird (2009: 450–51).
Different from Italian and German fascism, “the Dollfuß-/Schuschnigg-dictatorship did
not rest on a rising new party, which could unite large masses of the population behind
itself” . . . “in no way can one speak of a powerful movement that coherently followed the
Führer principle” (Reiter-Zatloukal, Rothländer, and Schölnberger 2012: 8–9).
2
Goldinger (1980: 271); Kindermann (1984: 66, 72); similarly Brook-Shepherd (1962: 163,
166, 201–2). On Dollfuß’s passive resistance, see documents in Maderthaner and Maier
(2004: 24–25, 31, 39, 44, 46, 58–60).
 The Spread of Fascist Movements 195

because of the genuine fears that the targets of these calculated distortions
harbored. The very impact of strategic manipulation thus shows that the
concerns about the radical left were widespread and deep-seated among
the citizenry.
The perceived danger of left-wing revolution fostered doubts in dem-
ocracy, which seemed to suffer from a fatal flaw: Liberal safeguards gave
liberty’s sworn enemies room for maneuver and thus facilitated their
subversive activities. Democracy looked especially vulnerable where it
confronted other serious problems, especially ethnic conflicts or socio-
economic crises, such as hyperinflation, recession, or mass unemploy-
ment; and where it suffered from institutional deficiencies, such as the
governmental instability and weak executive authority of the assembly-
type democracies in the Baltic countries. In different mixes, this panoply
of challenges undermined support for liberal pluralism and aggravated
concerns about the threat from the radical left. Whereas democracy
seemed to be overwhelmed by problems, autocracy with its concentrated
authority and determination to employ coercion promised much greater
protection, including immunity to the Bolshevist virus.
For these reasons, the right, with its growing aversion to democracy,
won increasing support in Europe and Latin America during the 1920s
and 1930s. In less modern societies with unconsolidated democracies that
faced a particularly high problem load, as in Eastern and Southern
Europe, the imposition of some type of reactionary autocracy was becom-
ing ever more likely. No wonder, then, that fascism drew widespread
attention and great admiration. After all, this novel regime type promised
the strongest guarantee against revolutionary challenges, the reliable
protection of domestic order through conflict suppression, and a good
chance of fortifying a country’s international position. The deterrent
effect of communism and other grave challenges thus raised the attraction
of fascism. The specter of the radical left played a crucial role in boosting
the radical right. Consequently, fascist movements formed and grew all
across the globe, even in polities with longstanding liberal and democratic
traditions, such as Britain and France (comprehensive overviews in Payne
1995; Paxton 2005; Bosworth 2009c).
But as highlighted, the reverse wave of the interwar years brought
mostly the spread of conservative authoritarianism, not totalitarian fas-
cism. Even the initial successes that Mussolini and then Hitler achieved
did not stimulate full-scale imitations. Except for Germany, the home-
grown fascist movements that sprouted up across Europe and Latin
America and were inspired by the Italian or German models uniformly
196 The Spread of Fascist Movements

failed to take power on their own. The main reason was that in these less
modern polities, established, traditional elites maintained a great deal of
social control and political clout; consequently, fascist movements grew
much less dramatically than in advanced Germany with its independent
and mobilized citizenry.
Moreover, these conservative elites also learned from Mussolini’s and
especially Hitler’s takeover, which quickly demonstrated the enormous
downsides of fascist totalitarianism. Precisely because the containment
efforts of Germany’s authoritarian elites strikingly failed, their counter-
parts across Europe and Latin America were determined to avoid this
mistake and prevent a fascist power seizure with all means. Thus, fascism
quickly exerted its own deterrent effects, which blocked the diffusion of
this novel and seemingly appealing regime model.
Interestingly, in the less developed countries of Eastern and Southern
Europe and Latin America, conservative elites with their overwhelming
sociopolitical clout did manage to contain fascism. Through a variety of
tactics that ranged from cooptation to violent repression, they imposed or
strengthened the regime type that they preferred, namely hierarchical,
demobilizational authoritarianism. How the conflict-ridden relations
between establishment sectors and fascist upstarts played out depended
on the power constellation and political conjuncture of each country,
which gave rise to two distinct patterns of regime development.
First, where established elites clearly predominated, conservative stal-
warts used fascist movements as shock troops to install non-fascist autoc-
racies, as in Brazil in 1937 and in Spain during the late 1930s; and once
they sat firmly in the saddle, they subordinated these auxiliaries to their
own authoritarian domination. Similarly, Portugal’s authoritarian incum-
bent consolidated and hardened his arch-conservative regime in the early
to mid-1930s by using pressure from a rising fascist movement against
more liberal sectors, yet then subdued and eventually repressed these
right-wing extremists. Second, by contrast, where fascist movements were
surging in support, as in Austria in 1933/34, Estonia and Latvia in 1934,
and Romania in 1937/38, conservative elites forestalled the risk of a
fascist takeover by overthrowing battered liberal democracies and impos-
ing non-participatory dictatorships. To extinguish the extremist threat,
these preemptive autocracies employed determined repression, which was
especially brutal in Romania.
Interestingly, one way that the authoritarian regimes emerging through
both of these paths sought to gain strength for taming and subduing
fearsome fascist movements was by emulating some elements of fascism
 The Spread of Fascist Movements 197

itself. By creating their own paramilitary formations or government-

controlled parties, for instance, they tried to win some mass backing
and draw support away from their radical-right competitors. But conser-
vative authoritarians always maintained top-down control and never
transformed their autocracies into dynamic, mass-mobilizational dicta-
torships. Consequently, the foreign imports mostly remained empty
shells; government parties, for instance, elicited only weak commitment
and lacked the fervor of fascist movements. Indeed, incumbent rulers let
these alien elements wither away once they had averted the threat of
fascism. Thus, borrowing from the fascist toolkit did not turn these
autocracies into fascist totalitarianism; instead, they always remained
elitist, hierarchical types of conservative authoritarianism.
In sum, the global rise of fascism affected regime development in
variegated, complex, and even contradictory ways. In some countries,
fascist movements helped install authoritarian rule, whereas elsewhere
they posed an acute threat that authoritarian coups sought to preempt.
Even more strikingly, authoritarian dictators often repressed domestic
fascists while simultaneously learning from foreign fascists.
There was one important commonality, however: These heterogeneous
tendencies uniformly had deleterious, often lethal, consequences for lib-
eral democracy. Whether authoritarian leaders cooperated with fascist
challengers or preempted and suppressed them, the main victim was
political freedom. By whatever path, dictatorship proliferated while polit-
ical pluralism suffered compression. Thus, although fascism as a regime
type did not spread beyond Germany, the allures of Mussolini’s new
model and the widespread formation of fascist movements provided
strong impulses for the authoritarian wave of the interwar years.
Interestingly, this anti-democratic impact resulted primarily from fas-
cism’s deterrent effects and the drastic countermeasures imposed by con-
servative elites. Thus, like its ideological opposite, communism, fascism
proved far more important by prompting determined, powerful counter-
diffusion than by stimulating successful diffusion.3

3
My analysis of fascism’s regime impact, developed independently in 2015 and published in
an early version in 2017 (Weyland 2017), coincides in many ways with the excellent
studies of Kallis (2014, 2016), which I first encountered in March 2017. Following Linz
(2000, 2002), Eatwell (2001: 34–38), and recently Bauerkämper and Rossoliński-Liebe
(2017: espec. 3), however, I regard the distinction of authoritarianism and totalitarianism
as fundamental and therefore differ from Kallis’s (2016) claim that fascism and conserva-
tive authoritarianism often formed true hybrids. Instead, as this and the following chapter
show, fascism and authoritarianism nowhere achieved a real integration, not even in the
198 The Spread of Fascist Movements

The present chapter examines how the emergence of fascist movements

and their tension-filled relationships with the conservative advocates of
authoritarian rule propelled the spread of reactionary autocracy during
the 1920s and 1930s. The next section analyzes the fear of communism
that directly or indirectly drove the proliferation of dictatorships. The
section after that highlights how in response to this threat, fascist move-
ments sprouted up across Europe and Latin America, while the subse-
quent section exemplifies these processes by focusing on Romania, where
the third most powerful fascist movement after Italy and Germany
emerged. The section following that presents the principal reasons why,
contrary to Italy and Germany, fascist movements universally failed in
their determined quest for power. This section, the chapter’s theoretical
core, emphasizes the political clout of conservative elites and elucidates
their strong preference for authoritarianism over fascism The final section
examines why, despite their aversion to full-scale fascism, many authori-
tarian regimes imported bits and pieces of the fascist model – but soon let
these alien graftings wither on the vine.

       :

   
In line with this book’s central argument about the double deterrent
effect, the fear of revolutionary Marxism was a fundamental motive for
the rise of the reactionary right and the proliferation of reactionary
dictatorships during the interwar years. This chapter examines the indir-
ect impact of this threat via the emergence of fascist movements, which
created new allies but also dangerous competitors for conservative estab-
lishment sectors. Before examining this complex new cleavage and its
repercussions, the present section analyzes how the fundamental backlash
to communism directly shaped regime developments.
In the 1920s and 1930s, dread of communism ran high, even after the
early efforts to emulate Lenin’s bold power grab had everywhere been
defeated. The specter of Bolshevism scared conservatives and even cen-
trists all over the globe, as Chapter 5 highlighted. Viewed from a rational
perspective, perceptions of communist threat were often excessive and
sometimes bordered on paranoia. The reason was that the Russian
Revolution activated the heuristics of availability and representativeness

farthest-going attempt, Romania’s National Legionary State of 1940/41 examined in

Chapter 8.
 Fear of Communism in the Autocratic Reverse Wave 199

and stimulated expectations of easy replicability. Moreover, the conspira-

torial approach of communists, which concealed their real strength,
exacerbated uncertainty and thus induced their opponents to keep
resorting to cognitive shortcuts.
Consequently, worries about communism prevailed in Europe as well
as faraway Latin America. The wave of radical labor contention and
revolutionary uprisings after WWI left lasting legacies of fear. Even in
Portugal, for instance, which had experienced “red danger” from 1919 to
1922 (Bernecker 2002: 208), threat perceptions lingered thereafter, des-
pite the actual weakness of radical-left forces (e.g., Carvalho 2013:
12–13). Similarly, in Argentina, the massive strikes and protests of the
“tragic week” of 1919 created a traumatic precedent (Devoto 2005:
127–30); consequently, a wide range of sectors held fears of left-wing
revolution in subsequent decades (Waisman 1987; Rock 1993: 112,
128–29, 133–35, 139, 146–52). This sense of danger was reinforced in
Eastern Europe by the proximity of the Soviet Union, which kept promot-
ing its world-revolutionary goals. In Romania, for instance, radical-right
organizing originated in the Northeast, close to the menacing communist
power.
Acute concerns about communism caused a direct backlash that fueled
the imposition of dictatorship in a number of countries. For instance, “the
great fear” of the radical left was the predominant motive for Spain’s
brutal descent into authoritarianism during the second half of the 1930s
(Ranzato 2014), as discussed in Chapter 8. Similarly, the move toward
autocracy after Bulgaria’s anti-populist coup of 1923 was prompted by a
“halfhearted effort by the Communists to undertake a revolution”
(Bernecker 2002: 248; see also 474; Whetstine 1988: 84–85; Berend
1998: 132–33). A massive communist bomb attack in 1925 that tried to
blow up the country’s political leadership then provoked a further reac-
tionary backlash (Groueff 1987: 142–49; Crampton 2005: 153–54). Fear
of the radical left also guided the royal dictatorship that Tsar Boris III
instituted after another coup in 1934 (Chary 2007: 124–29; see also
Poppetrov 1988: 537). Similarly, perceptions of a communist threat –
however far-fetched – played a role in the installation of the Metaxas
dictatorship in Greece in 1936 (Papacosma 2007: 179–83; Pelt 2014:
201, 209).
The destruction of Lithuania’s democracy also resulted directly from
left-right polarization. The 1926 coup dislodged a government “widely
perceived as a dangerously leftist alliance” that had “under socialist
pressure” made parliament “pass some very unpopular economic
200 The Spread of Fascist Movements

measures that . . . strongly upset influential political forces”; for instance,

cuts in the army budget antagonized the military (Vardys 1978: 70–71;
see also Misiunas 1970: 91–94; Rothschild 1974: 378–79; Pasteur 2007:
138). In fact, the Catholic opposition party “compared the leftist coalition
with the regime of A. Kerensky in Russia 1917, which was followed by
the October power grab of the Bolshevists” (Lopata 2001: 113; see also
110, 116, 139–40). Widespread dread of the radical left allowed the coup
makers to claim they had preempted a planned communist takeover
(Lopata 2001: 119–20; Kasekamp 2010: 108). But expert Joseph
Rothschild (1974: 379) judges, “the original Catholic involvement in this
coup was myopic and proved a political blunder.” This “misjudgment”
sacrificed political liberty and helped a group of “ultranationalists”
entrench their dictatorship, which the Christian democrats quickly came
to oppose – but to no avail (Rothschild 1974: 379). Thus, excessive fear
stoked by the Bolshevik precedent brought a distinctly suboptimal regime
outcome, a product of bounded rationality.
In numerous other instances, concerns about the radical left contrib-
uted to the imposition of autocracy in interaction with other problems
and challenges. Nagging worries about communism exacerbated discon-
tent with the teething problems of the many new democracies instituted
after WWI. The fragmentation of party systems, the lack of democratic
experience, and the resulting deficits in governability created a sense of
vulnerability across Eastern Europe. When these countries suffered unpre-
cedented economic crises, especially hyperinflation in the 1920s and mass
unemployment in the early 1930s, these concerns turned acute and
prompted determined reactionary countermeasures. In Estonia, for
instance, a communist coup attempt in late 1924 punctured confidence
in the new democracy with its constitutionally weak executive leadership.
The shocking challenge stimulated reform attempts to create a powerful
presidency, which intensified during the Great Depression, provided a
popular cause for the emergence of a radical-right movement, and in these
ways helped to provoke the authoritarian coup of 1934 (Vardys 1978:
72–73), as Chapter 8 discusses.
In other cases, the fear of communism operated as a background
factor, not a proximate cause of democracy’s downfall. In Yugoslavia,
for instance, communists had achieved considerable organizational and
electoral success from 1919 to 1921, which instilled intense fears among
establishment sectors and provoked the party’s prohibition and banning
(Benson 2001: 27, 32–33, 36; Nielsen 2014: 43–44). But the principal
reason for the royal dictatorship imposed in 1929 was the incessant acute
 Fear of Communism in the Autocratic Reverse Wave 201

conflicts among the heterogeneous ethnic and religious groupings making

up this newly founded country,4 which paralyzed democratic decision-
making (Benson 2001: 45–46, 52; Nielsen 2014: 41, 45–51, 57–73;
Connelly 2020: 377–79).
In Poland, anti-Russian nationalism reinforced the strong rejection of
communism (see Pilsudska 1941: 273, 280, 284, 287–88, 292–93).
Indeed, in the Russian–Polish War of 1920, the restored nation defeated
the Bolshevist armies’ effort to push the world revolution into Central
Europe (Pilsudska 1941: 301; Lukowski and Zawadzki 2006: 225,
229–30). But it was incessant politicking, infighting, and corruption
among Polish politicians, a product of pronounced party fragmentation,
that triggered the 1926 coup by the father of Polish nationhood and victor
of 1920, Marshal Józef Piłsudski (Pilsudska 1941: 279, 329, 334). Indeed,
the new authoritarian regime initially did not have a right-wing orienta-
tion and even won support from Poland’s socialist party (Davies 2005:
311–12, 404; Lukowski and Zawadzki 2006: 240–42). Over time, how-
ever, the war hero’s rule turned more dictatorial and moved in a conserva-
tive direction; both trends grew stronger after the marshal’s death in 1935
(Davies 2005: 313–14; Lukowski and Zawadzki 2006: 242–49).
In sum, there were some instances during the interwar reverse wave
when anti-communism played only a limited role. Overall, however, fear
of the revolutionary left was intense after Lenin’s success and prompted a
widespread and powerful reaction, in direct or indirect ways.
Consequently, many cases of autocratic imposition had clear counter-
revolutionary goals. The perceived threat of Bolshevism constituted the
common factor that explains the wavelike nature of democracy’s over-
throw during the 1920s and 1930s. The fundamental backlash to com-
munism boosted the reactionary right, inducing conservative elites to turn
to authoritarian rule and giving rise to a new current, totalitarian fascism.
Specifically, fears of communist revolution were a principal reason for
the formation of fascist movements, which recruited many followers and
won toleration or support from conservative elites by battling the radical
(and the not-so-radical) left. Anti-communism often fused with anti-
Semitism because left-wing parties had disproportionate shares of Jews
among their leaders and militants, especially in Eastern Europe (Mann

4
Interestingly, one factor that exacerbated inter-ethnic hostility and made King Aleksandar
concerned about Croat intransigence was that due to some tactical pronouncements and
bluffs by Croat leaders, their opposition to Serb predominance was perceived as inspired
by Bolshevism (Nielsen 2014: 45–46, 48–50).
202 The Spread of Fascist Movements

2004: 240, 270; for Hungary, see Connelly 2020: 394; for Germany, see
Kershaw 2000: 114–16). Indeed, right-wingers’ wild conspiracy theories
equated these two types of “enemies of the people,” who personified the
corrosive repercussions of cosmopolitan modernity on tradition, nation-
hood, and Christianity. For instance, Romania’s fascist leader Corneliu
Zelea Codreanu (1939: 349), whose autobiography railed in the vilest
terms against communists and Jews, flatly stated, “When I say
‘Communist,’ I mean primarily the Jew.” With this poisonous blend of
anti-communism and anti-Semitism, fascists invoked widespread fears
and prejudices to boost their popular support.
Fascism’s rise then contributed mightily to the imposition of authori-
tarianism, as the numerous country cases examined in Chapter 8 docu-
ment. In this indirect way, concerns about communism exerted another
powerful impact on the autocratic wave of the interwar years: Dread of
the radical left boosted the radical right. Yet due to the double deterrent
effect, conservative elites feared and fought not only the radical left but
also the radical right; rejecting fascist totalitarianism, they installed or
hardened authoritarian rule instead. Thus, fear of communism contrib-
uted to the proliferation of dictatorships not only by provoking a direct
reaction (as the first section highlighted) but also indirectly by stimulating
an extreme-right backlash, which in turn allowed and prompted conser-
vative elites to fortify political order via exclusionary, hierarchical
authoritarianism. As the specter of left-wing totalitarianism helped propel
the rise of right-wing totalitarianism, powerful establishment sectors
combated both ideological extremes by imposing or reinforcing non-
participatory dictatorships.
In sum, the reverse wave of the interwar years advanced in twisted,
refracted ways. While the Russian Revolution provided a crucial original
trigger, the emergence of fascist totalitarianism created an additional fault
line that also caused powerful earthquakes. Outside Germany, conserva-
tive authoritarians emerged victorious from these battles. The main casu-
alty, however, was liberal democracy, destroyed by the assault of all these
hostile forces.

    : 

   
Virtually every country in the world, even the United States with its
longstanding liberal democracy, saw fascist movements arise during the
1920s and 1930s. In a few nations of Western and Northern Europe,
 The Proliferation of Fascist Movements 203

these fringe groupings remained mere nuisances. Yet even in some estab-
lished democracies, such as Belgium and France, these reactionary chal-
lengers found surprising numbers of followers (De Wever 2009; Tumblety
2009). In several countries of Central and Eastern Europe, fascist move-
ments achieved substantial organizational, electoral, and paramilitary
strength. During the 1930s, radical-right offshoots in Austria, Estonia,
Hungary, and Romania expanded so much that they looked like a serious
threat. Fascism also flourished in Latin America, especially in Brazil,
yet also Argentina, Chile, and Paraguay (Trindade 1979; Deutsch 1999;
Sznajder 2001; Klein 2004; Finchelstein 2010; Seiferheld 2016).
Fascism’s proliferation had crucial internal causes. Some of its roots lay
in the nineteenth century, which had given birth to modern nationalism
and anti-Semitism. Yet as the wave-like nature of fascism’s advance
suggests, external stimuli were also crucial. After all, fascism owes its
very emergence to Mussolini’s Italy, and its later emulation in Nazi
Germany provided an additional impetus. Chapter 5 examined the first
ripples of this diffusion process, namely the rash efforts to replicate the
March on Rome. Because these plans to imitate the Duce’s audacious
takeover uniformly failed, fascist movements mostly abandoned direct
assaults on power. Instead, they concentrated on organization building,
mass mobilization, and electoral efforts, while also intimidating their
enemies and undermining the existing regime through street violence.
The catastrophe of the Great Depression and the dramatic advance of
the German NSDAP further boosted the fortunes of extreme right-
wingers. In some countries, such as Estonia in early 1934 and Romania
in 1937/38, their popular support swelled to such an extent that they
seemed to have good chances of winning power in the next election.5
While originally stimulated by Mussolini’s takeover in Italy, the
growth of fascist movements received a strong impulse from Hitler’s
Machtergreifung and from his achievements in fomenting economic
recovery, diminishing mass unemployment, and strengthening
Germany’s international position. For instance, Hungary’s reactionary
head of state, Admiral Miklós Horthy ([1953] 2011: 146; see also 136),
highlighted with reference to Germany’s dictator, “There can hardly have
been a single person in the length and breadth of Europe who took no
interest in the rise of the man . . . who . . . was now achieving the most

5
For Estonia, see Kasekamp and Toomla (2012: 32–33); for Romania, see Nagy-Talavera
(1970: 295–96); Heinen (1986: 355–56): Sandu (2014: 145–48); Schmitt (2016: 245, 249,
251, 254–55).
204 The Spread of Fascist Movements

remarkable successes in every field.” Similarly, as a student in Berlin in

late 1933, Romanian intellectual Emil Cioran ([1931–37] 2011: 80) was
fascinated with Nazi Germany’s “passion for a fertile and creative bar-
barism, its capacity for infinite daring.” And in 1937, he confessed: “I
believe there are – even in Germany – few people who hold greater
admiration for Hitler than I do.”6
If conservative authoritarians like Horthy and brilliant essayists like
Cioran were impressed,7 then fascists were elated and derived strong
encouragement from Hitler’s early triumphs. Romania’s Codreanu, for
instance, exalted the Führer, “who in the year 1933 wrestled himself to a
magnificent victory and who unified the whole German people under his
great command alone” (Codreanu 1939: 57; see ibid, 115, 413–15; see
also Heinen 1986: 226, 325; Sandu 2014: 28, 60, 77–79). The inspir-
ational impact of Hitler’s Machtergreifung extended as far as Paraguay,
firing up one of the first Nazi parties formed outside Germany, as early as
1929 (Seiferheld 2016: 84–86, 91–92). Applying the heuristics of avail-
ability and representativeness, fascists across the world jumped to the
conclusion that with redoubled mobilizational efforts they could accom-
plish similar feats. Interestingly, the demonstration effect of the Nazis’
success proved powerful although Hitler provided only limited financial
and political support to fellow fascists and the extreme-right movements
arising inside Germany’s sphere of interest were, as fervent nationalists,
often wary of the Nazi regime’s aggressive imperialism.8
Despite their high hopes inspired by Hitler’s initial success, however,
fascist movements never managed to seize power on their own, without
geopolitical pressure or military support from Nazi Germany. Where
these upstart groupings seemed to have realistic chances of taking control
of the government, via ballots as in Estonia or via bullets as in Austria,
conservative elites forcefully blocked their ascent by imposing authoritar-
ian rule or by violently defending an existing non-fascist autocracy.

6
Cioran ([1931–37] 2011: 189–90). Chillingly, immediately after Hitler’s massacre of the
SA leadership in mid-1934, Cioran ([1931–37] 2011: 140), when asked to comment on
these “events, which shocked the whole world,” professed: “There is no politician in the
contemporary world who instills a greater liking [‘Sympathie’ in the German translation]
in me than Hitler.”
7
Interestingly, democratic party leaders sometimes uttered similar eulogies, as Iuliu Maniu
of Romania’s National Peasants’ Party did in late 1937 (Vago 1975: 243–44).
8
For instance, although Latvia’s fascists “adopted . . . the near-Nazi greeting of . . . ‘Kampf
Heil’” and one of their leaders held “great admiration for Hitler,” they also were distinctly
“anti-German” with “their simplistic slogan, ‘Latvia for the Latvians’” (Von Rauch 1995:
152).
 The Proliferation of Fascist Movements 205

Ironically, Hitler’s Machtergreifung helped to provoke these repressive

responses by suggesting to status-quo defenders what would happen if a
fascist movement were allowed to advance unchecked and take over.
Thus, the Nazis’ brutal push toward totalitarianism, which immediately
drew global attention (e.g., Armstrong 1933: 589–93), exerted strong
deterrent effects that played an important role in forestalling fascism’s
further spread (for Romania, see Heinen 1986: 191, 226–27, 238, 241;
Sandu 2014: 79–80).9 Hitler’s political success thus contributed to his
imitators’ failure.
Indeed, conservative advocates of authoritarianism were scared and
revolted by Hitler. For instance, soon after highlighting the Nazi leader’s
“most remarkable successes in every field,” Hungary’s Horthy ([1953]
2011: 146; see also Dreisziger 1968: 42) commented on “the bloody June
30th, 1934,” the massacre of the SA leadership: “This justice of ven-
geance with neither judge nor tribunal had profoundly shocked me.”10
That Hitler’s victims included his immediate predecessor as chancellor,
conservative general Kurt von Schleicher, must have reinforced Horthy’s
revulsion: Would he suffer the same tragic fate after a fascist takeover in
Budapest? Even a fervent Mussolini admirer wrote his friend, Brazil’s
conservative strongman Getúlio Vargas, about “Hitler, the Wagnerian
butcher of the macabre blood carnival of Bavaria” [where the SA leader-
ship had recently been slaughtered] and added that “Hitler is a dangerous
explosive” (Silveira 1934: 4). As a contemporary political scientist con-
cluded, “the action of June 30 had a sobering effect on the enthusiasts for
dictatorial rule all over the world” (Loewenstein 1935a: 590).
Austria’s Christian-Social conservatives also expressed their aversion
to the Hitler regime in internal discussions among party leaders. In April
1933, the defense minister claimed: “The experiment Hitler [is] certainly
dangerous, an unbelievable danger for Germany. Probably the experi-
ment will end in failure” (Goldinger 1980: 238). And in May 1933, a
conservative politician denounced the German Machtergreifung: “They
have pushed [all political parties] to the wall, brutally. Every right of

9
In response to Hitler’s rise, left-wingers also transformed their strategy. In a complete
turnaround, the Comintern stopped targeting social democracy as the main enemy
(“social fascists”) and now sought alliances with the center-left to form anti-fascist
“popular fronts” (McAdams 2017: 223, 236–41). This reorientation did not forestall
internecine infighting among the left, however, which turned most bloody during Spain’s
Civil War (McAdams 2017: 242).
10
Allegedly, even Mussolini rejected “this abominable and repulsive spectacle” as “savage
barbarism” (quoted by Starhemberg 1942: 170).
206 The Spread of Fascist Movements

freedom is being kicked with feet” (Goldinger 1980: 245). Even openly, in
a book published at the height of the Nazi regime’s ascendancy,
Portugal’s arch-conservative dictator António Salazar voiced his discom-
fort: In Hitler’s “totalitarian state . . . humans exist only for the aggrand-
izement and glory of the state. . . . A state that is so strong won’t shy away
even from the most exaggerated violence” (Salazar [1937] 1977: 69–70).
Thus, the Nazis’ resolute power grab in Germany sent shivers down the
spines of conservative sectors by suggesting the tremendous risks inherent
in fascist totalitarianism.
To prevent such a fascist takeover that could quickly overpower them,
the powers-that-be struck when they still commanded predominant force
(Mann 2004: 238). They did not want to miss their last chance of
maintaining control, as their German counterparts, who underestimated
the Nazi challenge, had done. In this vein, authoritarian forces in
Hungary and Romania employed determined, even brutal, coercion as
soon as the main fascist parties achieved a sudden jump of their vote
shares to 16–20 percent (Nagy-Talavera 1970: 152–55, 293–301;
Szöllösi-Janze 1989: 152–54, 250–52; Sandu 2014: 144–57). In contrast,
the NSDAP had been allowed to build on its dramatic surge to 18.3
percent in 1930 and keep expanding; and once it then garnered 37.4
percent in mid-1932, it had become too massive to repress – and soon
thereafter ended up seizing power.11 Alerted by the German precedent,
conservative adherents of authoritarianism across Europe and Latin
America never allowed fascists to advance so far, but aborted their rise
immediately after the first striking upsurge.
Many fascist movements, however, never reached the strength to have
a realistic prospect of taking power. They did not manage to turn into
catch-all parties that drew a wide range of protest voters, as the NSDAP
had done during the Great Depression. A basic obstacle to fascism’s
growth was the sociopolitical clout that established elites retained in
“backward” Eastern and Southern Europe and Latin America (Janos
1982; Luebbert 1991: 258–59; Berend 1998; Sundhaussen 2001:
341–46; Pasteur 2007: 9–10, 39–50, 206). Whereas urbanization and
industrialization had corroded elite predominance in Germany (Peukert
1993: 33–51), in less modern nations a limited part of the citizenry was
susceptible to mobilization by radical upstarts. Large proportions lived in
the countryside, where landowners used clientelism and labor repression

11
Larsen (2011: 25–28) contrasts the NSDAP’s unimpeded upsurge in the early 1930s with
the stunted electoral development of fascist parties in Western and Northern Europe.
 The Proliferation of Fascist Movements 207

to ensure their domination. Conservative elites therefore prevailed in

elections, hindered fascist advances, and maintained a stranglehold over
the government. Consequently, radical-right movements often were small
and fleeting; many remained confined to the extremist fringe or soon
faded back into insignificance.
Moreover, in countries ranging from Spain to Hungary, and even tiny
Latvia (Rothschild 1974: 375), a welter of small fascist groupings
emerged in the 1930s; this fragmentation meant weakness. Ironically,
Mussolini’s and Hitler’s precedents could prove so powerful – by inspir-
ing a number of imitators inside a single country – that the resulting
dispersion kept all of them powerless. Fascist movements depended on
personalistic leadership. Only a few leaders, however, such as Romania’s
Codreanu, commanded such magnetic charisma that they secured total
loyalty from their own followers and drew many members away from
competing groupings.12 But extreme-right chieftains often lacked this
extraordinary gift – and therefore headed minor, marginal groupings or
flash movements that quickly faded. For all of these reasons, fascist
movements in many countries remained more of an irritant or occasional
problem, rather than posing a serious threat.
In sum, fascist movements proliferated during the interwar years, but
were often limited in size, won small vote shares (Bermeo 2003: 25), and
commanded little fire power (for Eastern Europe, see now Connelly 2020:
409–32). While these weaknesses prevented many of these groupings
from having a significant regime impact, some played a role as auxiliaries
of conservative elites that helped to combat left-wing forces and to install
authoritarian regimes. Chapter 8 documents this pattern by examining
the cases of Brazil, Portugal, and Spain, where fascist movements served
as shock troops for (aspiring) dictatorial rulers. Only a few extreme-right
groupings achieved greater political success, which made them – and their
conservative adversaries – believe that they could soon grab power. This
scary prospect then induced the conservative establishment to crack down
hard and forestall any fascist takeover, as the case studies of Austria,
Estonia, and Romania in Chapter 8 document. To show how a radical-
right movement could obtain this unusual opportunity, which then
quickly turned to disaster, the following subsection investigates the

12
For Hitler, see Kershaw (1987); for Codreanu, see Iordachi (2013). Eyewitness Rosie
Waldeck ([1942] 2013: 29–30, 35, 196) was impressed with the persistence of
Codreanu’s charisma even two years after his assassination.
208 The Spread of Fascist Movements

emergence of the most potent fascist organization outside Italy and

Germany, Romania’s Legion of the Archangel Michael aka Iron Guard.

     

As the strength of conservative elites limited recruitment opportunities for
fascist movements, how did the Iron Guard in backward, largely rural
Romania manage to advance steadily and finally achieve a striking
upsurge that seemed to take the fascists close to power – before they
suffered violent repression by conservative elites (Chapter 8)?
The unusual growth of Romanian fascism resulted from structural elite
weakness and the abandonment of peasants and workers, combined with
the incredible charisma of political leader, avenging savior, and religious
mystic Corneliu Zelea Codreanu.13 With his supreme confidence in his
millenarian mission and his demonstrative authenticity as a son of
Romania’s provincial heartland,14 the smashingly good-looking Căpitan
captivated his followers and drew a devoted circle of disciples (Schmitt
2016: 86–94, 191–200). As he practiced fascism as a comprehensive way
of life and spread his gospel of redemption to a destitute citizenry neg-
lected by the governing elites, he gradually gained more supporters.
But of course, Codreanu’s success had crucial structural preconditions.
Most important was the deficient land reform enacted after WWI, when
Romania was still predominantly rural and overall quite poor. To prevent
“a feared massive peasant uprising” inspired by the Bolshevist takeover in
Russia (Hitchins 1994: 348; similarly Rothschild 1974: 281, 290–91),
Romania’s weak state redistributed large swaths of property, but did not
offer the new owners financial and technical support; therefore, many
peasants lived in abject poverty (Rothschild 1974: 290–93; Heinen 1986:
35–36, 101–2, 151–52; Connelly 2020: 259, 392–93).
While perpetuating social need and discontent, this hasty preemptive
reform also had corrosive political repercussions. The abolition of large
holdings undermined elite control over the peasantry, dissolved clientelis-
tic linkages, and prompted the downfall of the conservative party
(Sturdza 1968: 28; Nagy-Talavera 1970: 254; Livezeanu 1990: 219–20;
Hitchins 1994: 352, 377, 382). Because the Liberal Party, which ran the

13
Italian rightwinger Julius Evola ([1938] 2015: 65–66, 71, 101), who met Codreanu in
early 1938, offers striking testimony of this charisma.
14
The brief “autobiography” of his top aide Ion Moţa, reprinted in Moţa and Marin
([1923–37] 2019: 53–56), highlights this theme.
 The Unusual Potency of Romanian Fascism 209

government in the 1920s, was mainly urban-based (cf. Maner 2001:

444–45), many peasants were not tied into partisan networks. These
destitute smallholders were receptive for Codreanu’s quasi-religious
appeals (Sandu 2014: 211–13). Thus, as in Germany, the erosion of elite
predominance debilitated conservative forces and opened space for fascist
outsiders (Heinen 2013: 140–47; Iordachi 2014: 242).
The Legion of the Archangel Michael soon took advantage of this
opportunity. To move beyond its origins as an anti-communist and anti-
Semitic student movement and win a larger popular following, it under-
took herculean mobilization and organization efforts in the countryside
(Heinen 1986: 194–98, 227–35; Schmitt 2013: 279; Sandu 2014:
288–98; see also Moţa and Marin [1923–37] 2019: 53–56). Years of
patient recruitment in godforsaken villages (see Codreanu 1939: 331–38,
371, 410), which demonstrated the Iron Guard’s anti-elitist impetus and
won support from Orthodox clergy and rural schoolteachers (Maner
2001: 456–57; Haynes 2014: 177, 183–84; Clark 2015: 77–83, 211;
Connelly 2020: 404–6), paid off in the 1930s. As this disciplined fascist
movement entered elections, it won slowly increasing vote shares.
Behind the façade of parliamentary democracy, however, establish-
ment parties used voter intimidation and fraud to maintain control of
the government (Hitchins 1994: 377–80, 409–12; Maner 2001: 434,
438–41, 444–47; Clark 2015: 97–98). Facing these obstacles, the Iron
Guard long employed a shifty approach (Sandu 2014: 50, 69–70, 74–76,
86–88, 119, 196, 229, 290–95), alternating between electoral efforts and
violent attacks on government officials.15 Yet the threat of state retali-
ation and the success of its mobilizational work, which won it growing
numbers of committed followers (Codreanu 1939: 405–7, 436; see
Heinen 1986: 381–96; Sandu 2014: 298–322), induced the Legion from
1934 onward to concentrate on the electoral route and move away from
violence, albeit inconsistently.16
After Codreanu’s fascists gained a base in the countryside, they tried
hard in the mid-1930s to recruit in Romania’s cities as well. For this
purpose, they appealed to the anti-communism that had firm roots in this
neighbor of the Soviet Union and of Hungary, which had suffered

15
Clark (2015: 31–38, 42–44, 50, 57, 61, 75, 96, 99–104, 107–10, 246) recently docu-
mented this penchant for violence. See also Codreanu (1939: 53, 127, 130, 156, 185) and
Iordachi (2013: 22, 35, 38, 42).
16
Clark (2015: 151, 211). Codreanu (1939: 329, 347, 369, 412) claimed that he urged the
Legion to adopt a legal electoral strategy from 1929 onward – and tries to justify the
violence that his underlings continued to perpetrate as purely defensive or retaliatory.
210 The Spread of Fascist Movements

through a Soviet Republic in 1919.17 In Romania, fears of communism

indeed ran high after WWI (Müller 2001: 484–87; Schmitt 2013: 289,
295, 303, 311, 313) and left lasting memories (Sandu 2014: 308–9).
Furthermore, as in much of Eastern and Central Europe (Pasteur 2007:
14), the specter of communism was associated with alleged Jewish
machinations (Codreanu 1939: 16–18, 35, 41, 58–59, 338, 344, 349;
see also Clark 2015: 89). Because anti-Semitism festered with great viru-
lence among the populace, it provided a strong boost for anti-communism
as well (Schmitt 2013: 301–2) and induced people to support the far right,
whose conspiracy theories and hatred of Jews assumed hysterical
proportions.18
The Iron Guard emphasized anti-communism when starting its strik-
ingly successful campaign to win over urban workers in Romania’s
fledgling industries (Sandu 2013: 172–73, 297–302; Schmitt 2013: 278,
314–19, 334–40, 344–45, 358–59). Given the “ever-present irrational
fear of Communism” that prevailed in the country (Heinen 1986: 308;
similarly 260; see also Sandu 2014: 307–8), the Legion managed to
achieve significant support. In late 1937, it won its greatest electoral
success with 15.58 percent of the official vote, an impressive result in
Romania’s illiberal semi-democracy. As the entrenched ruling party lost
its longstanding majority (Sandu 2013: 156–58), the Iron Guard seemed
to have great chances of further growth.
While Romanian fascism, which emerged immediately after WWI, was
mostly homegrown (Schmitt 2013: 304–9) and had distinctive features
with its intense religiosity,19 foreign precedents also provided important
impulses. Codreanu revered Mussolini, writing in panegyric terms: “The
hero Mussolini . . . was for us a radiant star that filled us with joyful hope.
For us he was the living proof that the Hydra [of Judeo-Communism] can
be defeated, a confirmation of our own prospects for victory” (Codreanu
1939: 58; see also Kallis 2016: 308). Similarly, the Căpitan celebrated

17
Romanian fascists kept invoking the specter of Hungary’s fleeting communist regime
(Schmitt 2013: 289, 301–3).
18
Codreanu (1939: 28, 42, 47–48, 65–78, 99, 107, 151, 227, 350, 374). Codreanu (1939:
57) was “proud” to serve German students as “their teacher in anti-Semitic questions”
when he spent some time in Berlin in late 1922!
19
This religiosity included a mystical cult of redemption through sacrifice and death
(Codreanu 2015: 23–24, 45–48; see also Clark 2015: 194–210), which culminated in
fervent veneration for two Legionary leaders killed on General Franco’s side in the
Spanish civil war (see, e.g., Moţa and Marin [1923–37] 2019: 3, 7, 23–24, 41, 70–71,
90–91, 113).
 The Unusual Potency of Romanian Fascism 211

Hitler’s Machtergreifung of 1933 (Codreanu 1939: 57) and extolled how

the Nazi leader “goes from victory to victory!” in overcoming difficult
obstacles and winning power against all odds (Codreanu 1939: 413–14;
see also 115) – a feat that Codreanu of course hoped to replicate. Hitler’s
Balkan admirer even pledged: “Within 48 hours after the victory of the
Legionaries, Romania will have a close alliance with Rome and Berlin and
in this way advance on the path to its historical mission” (Codreanu
1939: 441).
Indeed, the precedent of Hitler had a powerful impact on the Legion’s
political fate – uplifting at first, yet shattering thereafter. The NSDAP’s
government takeover encouraged Codreanu to seek power via elections,
“the same as Hitler” (Codreanu cited in Haynes 2007: 114; see also
Heinen 1986: 205). It also inspired the Legion to redouble its mobiliza-
tional efforts by instilling unusual hope and confidence that success was
foreordained (Sandu 2014: 28–30, 77–83; Schmitt 2016: 131–39, 144).
This faith, inspired by the availability and representativeness heuristic,
made the Iron Guard ill-prepared for the determined, brutal repression
that establishment forces soon unleashed (Schmitt 2016: 253–56). This
backlash, in turn, reflected the strong deterrent effect that Hitler’s tri-
umph exerted on Romania’s political elites (Heinen 1986: 227, 238;
Sandu 2014: 79–80, 82–85). An important hardliner noted in his diary
that he pushed King Carol II to take measures against domestic “Hitlerist
movements” and exulted when the government cracked down hard on the
Iron Guard in 1933/34 (Călinescu 1999: 191, 200;20 Sandu 2014: 78,
83–86).
In equally contradictory ways, German developments also affected the
Iron Guard’s fortunes by changing Romania’s international context.
Hitler’s political victory and Germany’s subsequent recovery tilted the
balance of geopolitical power in Central and Eastern Europe. Germany’s
resurgent hegemony gave an additional boost to Balkan fascism, as British
diplomats highlighted (cited in Vago 1975: 250–51, 260–61). But in a
nationalist reflex, the looming great power also induced Romanian estab-
lishment forces to defend their national autonomy by containing and even
repressing Hitler’s domestic admirers and potential allies, as King Carol II
(1995: 234) stressed in his diaries.
In Romania, thus, a hasty land reform that corroded elite control but
left the peasantry poor, combined with zealous anti-communism and anti-

20
On Călinescu’s role and ever closer relationship with the king, see Ilie (2017).
212 The Spread of Fascist Movements

Semitism, allowed an exceptionally charismatic leader and his committed

disciples to build up a strong fascist movement, which in the late 1930s
seemed close to taking power. The increasingly successful Legion also
attracted support from distinguished Romanian intellectuals such as Emil
Cioran, Mircea Eliade, and Mihail Manoilescu (Heinen 1986: 353; Sandu
2014: 202–3, 218–20) and drew attention from foreign observers such as
Italian right-wing extremist Julius Evola ([1938] 2015: 65–68, 76–77).
The sustained advance and eventual surge of Romanian fascism remained
unusual, however. In most less-developed countries of Eastern Europe,
stronger elite predominance never allowed fascist movements to achieve
such strength, or they took off only episodically, as in Estonia
(Chapter 8).
In conclusion, the 1920s and especially the 1930s saw a proliferation
of fascist groupings across the globe. This diffusion wave resulted from
the political appeal and normative attraction of the new regime model,
which promised the polity’s energetic fortification and reliable protection
against “enemies of the people,” particularly the revolutionary left.
However, most of these fanatical movements remained numerically small,
organizationally fragmented, and politically isolated. Only in a few coun-
tries, namely Austria, Estonia, and Romania, did these upstart challengers
ever have a chance of taking power on their own, that is, neither as junior
partners of authoritarian forces (like the Falange in Spain’s civil war) nor
as protégés of hegemonic Nazi Germany (like Croatia’s Ustaša during
WWII). Why did the global appeal of fascism not propel the proliferation
of fascist regimes?

    –  

Fascism promised the strongest, most thorough cure of the ailments
plaguing crisis-ridden democracies, including immunization against com-
munism. Power concentration by a charismatic leader commanding mass
support would guarantee governability, crush internal enemies, and
strengthen the country internationally. Yet despite the great appeal that
this novel ideology exuded and despite the worldwide proliferation of
fascist movements, fascism as a full-scale regime rarely spread to other
countries. This new model experienced surprisingly little diffusion, under-
stood as a wave of uncoerced adoptions of a foreign innovation (cf.
DiMaggio and Powell 1983).
Instead, what proliferated during the interwar years was conservative
authoritarianism, which differed substantially from fascist totalitarianism
 The Proliferation of Authoritarianism – Not Fascism 213

(see especially Linz 2000, 2002; see also Berend 1998: 341–45). Even
Mussolini fans who claimed to follow the Duce’s footsteps, starting with
Spain’s Primo de Rivera (Chapter 5), actually imposed non-
mobilizational, elitist dictatorships. Why did fascism’s normative appeal
not exert greater force, shape regime developments, and produce the
isomorphic imitation expected by constructivists and sociological institu-
tionalists? Why did the Zeitgeist not carry the day? What hindrances
blocked the causal mechanisms highlighted by ideational theories, which
attribute great strength to novel ideas and values (Meyer and Rowen
1977; DiMaggio and Powell 1983)?

Obstacles to the Spread of the Fascist Regime Model

The main reason for the infrequency of fascism’s diffusion was the
ambivalent stance of powerful conservative elites vis-à-vis this innovative
model: Clear sympathies coexisted with strong reservations. Essentially,
conservative authoritarians and dynamic fascists stood in a love–hate
relationship. They shared many reactionary orientations, such as anti-
Marxism, anti-liberalism, and nationalism; however, they also had sub-
stantial ideological and political differences, especially in the depth and
ambition of their goals and in the ways and means of pursuing them (Linz
2002; see also Blinkhorn 1990).
As regards similar convictions, conservatives and fascists both
embraced sociopolitical hierarchy and forceful top-down domination.
However, they disagreed on who should command the apex of this
starkly unequal order. Conservatives insisted on maintaining the leading
role of established elites, whereas fascists pushed for installing their
charismatic leader at the top. Conservatives wanted to preserve and
cement the existing sociopolitical system, but fascist upstarts intended to
overpower established elites and assert their own supremacy (Luebbert
1991: 258–66). In a nutshell, while conservatives’ basic approach was
static, fascism was dynamic: Its regenerative (“palingenetic”: Griffin
2007) impulse was future-oriented and transformational, with a clear
anti-conservative edge.
In crisis-racked democracies, conservatives wanted to turn the clock
back by imposing non-mobilizational authoritarianism. Fascists had
much more ambitious goals, which mixed modern and atavistic elements
and aimed at a thoroughgoing, comprehensive overhaul. They pursued
the total penetration of state and society and intended to push even the
traditional elites from the driver’s seat, especially by imposing their
214 The Spread of Fascist Movements

personalistic leader as the unchallengeable authority running a

totalitarian system.
Given their shared insistence on sociopolitical hierarchy and rejection
of egalitarianism, a strong affinity between conservative authoritarians
and fanatical fascists was their fear of the radical left. But while estab-
lished elites saw fascists as useful shock troops for extirpating the danger
of communism, they also worried about the ultimate outcome of such
violent campaigns. What if domineering fascist leaders and their zealous,
brutish supporters sought to defeat not only the radical left and crush
other political forces but to displace even the established, mostly conser-
vative, elites? Understandably, those elites were unwilling to “rule [them-
selves] out” through a “collective abdication” (cf. Ermakoff 2008).
Instead of ceding power to an uncontrollable mass movement and its
unaccountable leader, they insisted on authoritarian rule to cement their
own predominance. Conservative politicians therefore refused to give up
the levers of government; business people feared arbitrary, ideological or
amateurish, incompetent interventions in the economy; and the military
did not want violent paramilitary hordes to undermine its monopoly over
organized coercion (Linz 2002: 64–69).
Thus, basic self-interests made conservative sectors averse to fascism;
they preferred authoritarianism with its exclusive and exclusionary elite
control. Many conservatives also disliked the coarse, plebeian style of
fascist movements, found their leaders’ simplistic demagoguery and ideo-
logical fanaticism repulsive, and despised these upstarts, who often hailed
from lower rungs of society (Linz 2002: 43). The extreme right violated
traditions of political propriety and jeopardized the natural hierarchy of
politics and society – though not as radically as the scary communists did.
Therefore, while conservative authoritarians often sought to use fascist
movements for instrumental purposes, especially in fighting the left, they
always tried to maintain control and rein in their allies once they had
rendered their services. Outside Germany, conservative elites and authori-
tarian rulers succeeded in these Machiavellian efforts. In less modern
countries, establishment sectors clearly predominated; this asymmetry
could be so pronounced that the uneasy alliance between conservatives
and fascists resembled principal–agent relationships more than marriages
of convenience. And where fascist movements temporarily gained
threatening strength, conservative elites drew on the military to squash
these challenges. In these ways, established elites managed to impose their
preference for stable authoritarianism and averted fascists’ push for
mobilizational totalitarianism (Blinkhorn 1990).
 The Proliferation of Authoritarianism – Not Fascism 215

An inherent contradiction arising from fascism’s fanatical nationalism

often posed an additional obstacle to the cross-national diffusion of
fascism. While the reactionary attack on the radical left could give rise
to international cooperation, fascist nationalism impelled a hostile,
aggressive stance toward a country’s neighbors, which is by nature diffi-
cult to multiply. After all, fascism seeks to breed winners in the Darwinian
struggle for international power: But how many winners can there logic-
ally be, and how can they get along with each other?21 In particular,
would the foreign admirers and imitators of Mussolini and Hitler get into
conflict with the original model countries, great powers Italy and
Germany, which pushed their own foreign-policy interests in Europe?22
Or would emulative fascist movements and new fascist regimes submit to
the model country’s power – and thus abandon their own drive for
national aggrandizement? The aggressive nature of fascism thus created
a fundamental dilemma and hindrance to its diffusion.
This problem had dogged even Hitler, Mussolini’s only successful imi-
tator. After all, admiration for the Duce violated pan-German nationalism
because Mussolini in the 1920s conducted a ruthless Italianization cam-
paign in largely German-speaking South Tyrol, which Italy had gained
after WWI.23 The Nazi leader had to go through difficult contortions to
justify his ideological affinity to the oppressor of this centuries-old German
territory (Hitler [1925] 2016: 1589–97). Austria’s radical rightists of the
1930s, wedged between the two fascist great powers, faced a particularly
complicated two-front battle (Peniston-Bird 2009: 439, 442, 446).
Ideological sympathies for Mussolini-style corporatism were held in check
by resentment over the loss of South Tyrol and wariness about the Duce’s
hegemonic ambitions. And the magnetic appeal of National Socialism – in
its Austrian and German currents – risked the political independence of this
new German-speaking country with its contested identity, which indeed
disappeared from the map with the Nazi Anschluß of 1938.24 Thus, fas-
cism’s aggressive nationalism hindered its cross-national proliferation.

21
Perceptively, British diplomats understood this dilemma (Vago 1975: 251, 261).
22
See in general Larsen (2001): 733–38; for the case of Italy and Portugal, see Kuin
(1993a: 8).
23
The festering wound of South Tyrol curtailed Italian fascism’s appeal among the German
right in general (Hoepke 1968: 134, 159–68, 276–79, 290; Schieder 1996: 84, 93, 100–1,
110–14).
24
French imitators of National Socialism faced the same dilemma (Orzoff 2016: 270). This
issue even became acute in Latvian right-wingers’ relations with Nazi Germany (Von
Rauch 1995: 152–56).
216 The Spread of Fascist Movements

In conclusion, efforts to emulate Italian fascism or German National

Socialism ran up against an inner contradiction and faced basic resistance
from conservative elite sectors. The former obstacle was not decisive, as
Hitler’s example suggests. Much more important were the reservations of
established elites, who did not simply “fall for” the novel regime model –
and who certainly did not want to fall over it! Crucially, those conserva-
tive sectors commanded massive power capabilities, including organized
coercion, and therefore managed to subdue and defeat threatening fascist
movements.

Decision-Making among Conservative Elites

In pushing their preferences for conservative authoritarianism over fascist
totalitarianism, established elites drew not only on stark resource advan-
tages but also tended to rely on decision-making procedures that loosened
the bounds of rationality somewhat. By contrast, fascist movements with
their charismatic leader and weak institutionalization were especially
susceptible to the distorted inferences resulting from cognitive shortcuts.
Therefore, fascist challengers often fell prey to vast overestimations of
their prospects, as the abortive “marches on” their national capital show
(Chapter 5). Conservative elites, by contrast, better understood the pre-
vailing balance of influence and knew how to use their power capabilities
effectively. Their less-bounded rationality helped establishment sectors
contain or defeat fascist movements and push through their own prefer-
ence for exclusionary authoritarianism.
In line with the arguments of Chapter 2, established elites tended to
conduct more thorough cost–benefit assessments than did fascist leaders
because they commanded organizational mechanisms for collective dis-
cussion and decision-making and had considerable political experience
(cf. Weyland 2016: 224–26). After all, these sectors often headed organ-
izations that provided structured advice and guaranteed some degree of
internal deliberation. While not as broad-based and pluralistic as, for
instance, the German SPD, conservative parties and business associations
had decision-making bodies that engaged in debate, vetted perceptions
and opinions, and thus filtered out the most problematic inferences
derived via cognitive shortcuts (see, e.g., Goldinger 1980). The military
with its hierarchical command structure was less prone to open debate,
but generals frequently held informal discussions among each other.
Moreover, establishment forces benefited from their long trajectory in
politics, which provided a great deal of knowledge and experience.
 The Proliferation of Authoritarianism – Not Fascism 217

Whereas many fascist leaders were untested upstarts and outsiders who
lacked a thorough understanding of the power constellation, conservative
politicians had held political responsibility for years, if not decades.
Moreover, they had forged contacts and connections among each other,
which facilitated information exchange and the calibration of their prob-
ability assessments. Although WWI, the Russian Revolution, and the
emergence of Italian fascism shook up old certainties, these sectors tended
to have a comparatively thorough understanding of the configuration of
powerful actors and their political capabilities.
Due to these two advantages, conservative elites tended to operate with
looser bounds of rationality and a better grasp of the political opportunity
structure. Therefore, these establishment sectors adopted a differentiated
posture toward fascist movements and Mussolini’s new regime model:
They picked and chose those elements that seemed to serve their own
interests, while eschewing and opposing those holding serious risks. In
this opportunistic fashion, they tried to use radical-right movements for
their own purposes, but controlled their plebeian dynamism and con-
tained or subjugated their charismatic leaders. Their better understanding
of the available options helped conservative elites win out in their negoti-
ations and conflicts with the rising forces of fascism.
Despite their organizational and experiential advantages, however,
conservative elites were also affected by cognitive distortions arising from
heuristic shortcuts. After all, the tremendous uncertainty pervading the
“age of extremes” with its novel ideological projects and not-well-tested
regime models was difficult to process with anything approaching full
rationality. Instead, misperceptions were common, and establishment
sectors often overestimated the threats they faced, both from the radical
left and the radical right. Their fears of communism and their estimates of
the likelihood of fascist power seizures were quite exaggerated.
Interestingly, these intense worries resembled the excessive concerns
that status-quo defenders including social democrats had harbored when
facing the early radical-left efforts to emulate Lenin’s takeover. In the face
of this unprecedented challenge, even the well-organized parties of the
reformist left had panicked, as Chapter 4 explained. In a similar vein,
conservative elites showed exaggerated dread, both in their constant fear
of communism and in their concerns about the risk of fascism. Thus,
looser bounds of rationality did not mean un-bounded rationality.
Nevertheless, just as social democrats had acted more rationally than
the precipitous emulators of Bolshevism, so conservative elites drew on
better information processing than fascist movements and leaders. This
218 The Spread of Fascist Movements

greater degree of rationality helped establishment sectors to marshal their

overwhelming power capabilities in calculated ways, coopt, control, or
crush the radical-right upstarts, and block their millenarian project of
totalitarian domination.

Structural Reasons for the Proliferation of Authoritarianism

As conservative elites opposed the installation of fascist regimes and
pursued this goal with reasonable aptitude (given their looser bounds of
rationality), their ability to control or defeat extreme right-wingers and
impose their own preference for authoritarianism depended on their
sociopolitical clout. In Eastern and Southern Europe and in Latin
America, conservative elites held clear predominance over fascist move-
ments. In contrast to modern Germany, establishment forces commanded
ample socioeconomic, political, and military resources in these under-
developed countries, whereas fascist upstarts won only limited popular
and elite support. Therefore, conservative elites managed to avert replica-
tions of Hitler’s Machtergreifung and the installation of full-scale fascism;
instead, they defended or imposed hierarchical, demobilizational authori-
tarianism. Germany’s embrace of fascism remained the big exception.
In the “backward” settings of Eastern and Southern Europe and Latin
America (Janos 1982; Luebbert 1991: 258–66; Berend 1998: chaps. 1–2;
Sundhaussen 2001: 341–46; Pasteur 2007: 9–10, 39–50, 206), conserva-
tive elites maintained control over substantial parts of the citizenry,
especially through rural clientelism. Because large numbers of people
continued to live in the countryside, landowners, clergymen, and other
notables commanded a great deal of influence. Conversely, incipient
industrialization and urbanization limited the proportion of more mobile
and rootless citizens (see Schmitt 2013: 347–49, 357–59), who were
particularly susceptible to demagogic appeals, eager to seek protection
and redemption from a charismatic leader, and happy to find a commu-
nity inside fervent mass movements.
The predominance of conservative elites restricted fascists’ room for
recruitment. Outside Germany, where the NSDAP achieved a sustained
upsurge, these upstart groupings remained limited in size, electoral prow-
ess, and paramilitary force. As distinct minorities, they were also narrow
and skewed in their social composition. As marginal forces that dispro-
portionately attracted young men, fascist movements with their strong
proclivity toward violence often formed hordes of rowdy thugs.
Therefore, many fascist movements had little appeal for regular, law-
 The Fortification of Regimes with Elements of Fascism 219

abiding citizens. Their failure to represent the broader population further

reduced their political clout (Vincent 2016: 398–400). Moreover, their
disorderly conduct also exacerbated the aversion of conservative elites,
reluctant to let “barbarian” henchmen take power and run roughshod
over their longstanding rights and privileges.
Limited in strength, radical-right movements were no match for con-
servative elites, who could count on the military to employ organized
coercion. For fascists, direct assaults on the government therefore held
few prospects. Resource asymmetries and frequent vote fraud made the
electoral route unpromising as well. Incapable of seizing power on their
own, right-wing extremists could be tempted to enter alliances with
stronger conservative forces and accept subordinate positions in govern-
ment. For these reasons, establishment sectors often tried and succeeded
in coopting, dividing, side-lining, or repressing these fanatical, plebeian
movements; even where temporary upsurges seemed to give fascist group-
ings a chance to seize power, they were quickly crushed. When interwar
democracies fell in Eastern and Southern Europe and in Latin America,
they therefore fell uniformly to conservative authoritarianism.
For these reasons, the interwar years, often depicted as the era of
fascism, did not see the proliferation of fascist regimes. Despite the
normative and political appeal of Mussolini’s new model, a less exciting
and innovative regime type spread, namely exclusionary hierarchical rule.
In fact, the very appeal of fascism helped propel this authoritarian wave:
In several cases examined in Chapter 8, establishment sectors averted
the perceived risk of fascist takeovers by imposing conventional
dictatorships.

    

   
There was another interesting ripple in the interwar reverse wave, how-
ever: Although fascism did not spread as a complete regime, numerous
elements of fascism diffused widely across Europe and Latin America.
During the 1920s and especially the 1930s, many dictators followed
Mussolini’s and then Hitler’s example and founded government-
controlled mass parties, youth movements, or paramilitary forces; created
propaganda agencies; or built up their secret police. In a striking twist,
these institutional instruments of fascism were imported by the same
conservative authoritarians who tried hard to keep fascist totalitarians
out of power. How and why did this apparently schizophrenic, but
220 The Spread of Fascist Movements

actually calculated and opportunistic, proliferation of fascist innovations

in non-fascist regimes come about?

The Opportunistic Import of Fascist Tools by Authoritarian Rulers

Precisely because elitist status-quo defenders sought to prevent a takeover
by radical-right upstarts, they often strengthened their own authoritarian
regimes by borrowing political tools of fascism. These selective imports,
which Mussolini and Hitler stimulated by promoting the spread of fascist
innovations across the world (Gentile 2001; Hagemann 2001), were
designed to alleviate the fundamental risk inherent in de-mobilizational
authoritarianism, namely the governing elite’s isolation from the citizenry
and its interest groups. Due to this distance between ruler and ruled,
conservative authoritarians commanded little reliable support from large
segments of the population.
Moreover, the exclusion of the mass citizenry facilitated opposition
mobilization. Deprived of political voice, discontented people could fall
for the appeals and promises of regime critics. Consequently, conservative
elites were always vulnerable: Under the surface of stability and de-
politicization, trouble could brew, and then unexpectedly erupt (cf. Pelt
2014: 209–10). And when facing sudden challenges, authoritarian rulers
could only resort to repression. But a badly targeted crackdown was
risky. Indiscriminate violence threatened to backfire and inflame the
opposition (cf. Kalyvas 2006: 151–60). Reliance on massive force would
also strengthen the military and create praetorian temptations to grab
power (Svolik 2012: 127–38).
Aware of these deficiencies and dangers, authoritarian rulers were
interested in the support-building instruments of fascism, especially when
perceiving threats from a resurgent left – or from a rising fascist move-
ment. Menacing conjunctures induced them to look beyond their normal
aversion to fascism and borrow some mechanisms and institutions of this
dynamic, totalitarian regime type. On a number of occasions, as in
Austria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, and Romania during the 1930s
(Iordachi 2014; Kasekamp 2017a), these partial imports resembled actual
immunization efforts: Conservative rulers adopted fascist innovations in a
limited dosage to strengthen their resistance against surging fascist move-
ments. Thus, foreign fascism gave authoritarians means to foil the domes-
tic installation of fascism. Cunningly, these establishment forces turned
some of Mussolini’s innovations against Mussolini’s aspiring emulators.
 The Fortification of Regimes with Elements of Fascism 221

Intent upon safeguarding their authoritarian regimes and determined

not to open the door to full-scale fascism, these conservative autocrats
proceeded in a deliberately half-hearted way: They sought to import some
bottom-up fascist energy and marshal it for their own goals, yet without
undermining their top-down control and elitist rule. They tried to engin-
eer enough popular support to consolidate their authoritarian command
but avoided empowering forces or creating organizations that could turn
against them. Thus, these authoritarian rulers carefully walked a tight-
rope – yet always erred on the side of hierarchical control. Therefore, as
soon as the radical-leftist or radical-rightist threat had passed, they
backed away from these opportunistic attempts at partial imitation and
let the fascist imports wither away.
In line with this book’s main argument, conservative sectors borrowed
from fascism with particular eagerness when confronting a challenge
from the extreme left. Whenever the scary specter of communism
appeared, authoritarian rulers tried hard to create some (counter-) mobi-
lizational capacity or expand propaganda efforts to counter left-wing
“demagoguery.” Yet once they had averted the threat, they soon wound
down these alien elements. Moreover, throughout this selective and tem-
porary imitation of fascist institutions, the regime remained fundamen-
tally authoritarian. Above all, the incumbent ruler maintained firm top-
down control and ensured that the fascist imports would not develop an
independent mobilizational dynamic that could threaten his preeminence.
In this vein, Portuguese autocrat António de Oliveira Salazar
toughened his arch-conservative regime with fascist components to pre-
vent any spillover of left-wing radicalization from neighboring Spain in
the mid-1930s. Yet as soon as reactionary General Francisco Franco
defeated the Spanish left, the dictator in Lisbon gradually deactivated
the fascist imports, as Chapter 8 examines. Similarly, Romania’s King
Carol II tried to reinforce his royal dictatorship by creating a fascist-style
government party – ironically, with the goal of surviving and overcoming
the political advances and terrorist assaults of the fascist Iron Guard.
Authoritarian regimes in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia undertook similar
efforts (Connelly 2020: 426, 430–31).
In sum, fascist imports helped conservative rulers stabilize their
authoritarian regimes and combat their enemies, especially left-wing or
right-wing radicals. Yet because the main goal was to maintain authori-
tarianism and strictly avoid a slide into full-scale fascism, the borrowed
fascist elements were deliberately contained and never flourished. In an
authoritarian setting, they remained alien components that lacked
222 The Spread of Fascist Movements

bottom-up energy and did not achieve great political efficacy.

Conservative dictatorships with their top-down, exclusionary nature were
unable – and unwilling – to stimulate genuine mass involvement.
Governmental efforts to induce the populace to contribute to the ruler’s
goals did not elicit the enthusiastic commitment that ideological fanati-
cism and charismatic leadership whipped up in fascist movements and
regimes. The disciples and followers of Hitler or Romania’s Codreanu,
for instance, dedicated their whole lives to the chiliastic cause and will-
ingly incurred enormous sacrifices. There was no way for an aloof,
laconic dictator like Portugal’s Salazar, formerly a university professor
of finance (Ferro 1939: 75–78, 185–88, 192), or a frivolous playboy like
Romania’s Carol II (Bucur 2007: 91–94) to get people fired up to defend
their rule with similar fervor!
No wonder, then, that the regime parties and paramilitary organiza-
tions that conservative authoritarians formed never really came to life
(Pasteur 2007: 81–86). The limited number of people who joined “went
through the motions,” yet lacked the fighting spirit that infused
Mussolini’s and Hitler’s original models. Most members were conformist
office holders or opportunistic office seekers, not dedicated activists.
Thus, the fascist elements that were grafted onto authoritarian regimes
often remained empty shells.25 Expert Joseph Rothschild (1974: 311,
313) therefore dismisses these imports as a “pseudo-radical, semifascist
burlesque . . . [that] never developed any authentic dynamism.”26
Consequently, this borrowing did not transform the nature of the host
regimes. Despite the partial copying from fascism, these elitist autocracies
remained solidly authoritarian and did not turn totalitarian.

The Unusual Proliferation of Corporatism

Compared to this selective and half-hearted borrowing, one component
of Mussolini’s new regime model spread more widely. The corporatist
system of interest representation held especially broad appeal because it
had ideological roots beyond fascism. While enacted first in Italy in 1926/
27, this organicist scheme of functional class integration originated in the
medieval guild system. Rediscovered in the nineteenth century, it gained

25
For Eastern Europe’s authoritarian regimes, see Janos (1970: 217–19); for royal dictator-
ships in the Balkans, Sundhaussen (2001: 339); for Austria, Brook-Shepherd (1962:
105–8) and Pammer (2013: 397–99).
26
For the Austrian case, see Pauley (1981: 159–63).
 The Fortification of Regimes with Elements of Fascism 223

crucial support from papal encyclicals in 1891 and 1931, as part of the
Catholic Church’s own crusade against communism (Houlihan 2017).27
Corporatism also won adherents among political economists because the
main goal of its twentieth-century versions was to conciliate business and
labor, avoid class struggle and Marxist agitation, and guarantee a smooth
industrialization process (Manoilescu 1934; Morgan 2009). With these
goals in mind, Mussolini began installing such a system of government-
guided societal representation soon after consolidating his dictatorship.
The Duce then codified its guiding principles with his famous Carta del
Lavoro in 1927, which turned fascist corporatism into a model with
enormous global appeal (Pasetti 2019: 144–48) and with immediate
influence, for instance on Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship in Spain (see,
e.g., Ben-Ami 1983: 290–99).
Due to its diverse roots among various currents of the right and
beyond, corporatism diffused in a broad wave (see recently Pinto 2017,
2019b), outside of specific threatening conjunctures. Many authoritarian
rulers adopted corporatism in the constitutions that sought to institution-
alize their regimes. After all, this structure of collaborative decision-
making promised to guarantee stability and hierarchy, prevent the atom-
istic decomposition resulting from liberal individualism, and forestall the
class conflict fomented by Marxists. Corporatism thus offered a tradition-
based scheme for ordering complex modern societies and forging cooper-
ation among different classes and sectors. In this way, it promised a more
reliable safeguard against communist subversion than sheer repression.
Corporatism’s appeal thus reflected right-wingers’ underlying concern
about the spread of radical leftism that arose with the Russian
Revolution and remained virulent throughout the interwar years. In line
with this book’s main argument, both conservative authoritarians and
totalitarian fascists were drawn to an institutional structure that seemed
to immunize the ailing body politick against the communist virus.
Due to the precedent of fascist Italy, the Catholic encyclicals, and
corporatism’s longstanding historical roots, a wide range of authoritarian
regimes enshrined corporatist provisions in their constitutions, laws, or
labor regulations.28 With the papal endorsement via Quadragesimo Anno

27
On the Catholic embrace and advocacy of corporatism, see Pasteur (2007: 54–56, 153)
and Roberts (2016: 104, 132–34).
28
Overviews in Pinto (2014: espec. 93) and Pinto (2017: espec. 9); thorough and wide-
ranging analyses in Pinto, ed. (2017), Pinto and Finchelstein (2019), and Pinto (2019b).
224 The Spread of Fascist Movements

in 1931, corporatism diffused especially among Catholic countries,29

both in Europe and Latin America.30 But the corporatist wave also swept
beyond this cultural zone by reaching Lutheran Estonia and Latvia in the
Northeast of Europe (Kasekamp 2017a), and Orthodox Greece and
Yugoslavia in the Southeast (Kallis 2017; Petrungaro 2017). Thus, cor-
poratism was the component of Italian fascism that spread to the
broadest, most diverse range of countries, with some echoes even in the
United States under FDR’s New Deal (Pasetti 2019: 148–51).
Interestingly, while the Carta del Lavoro – together with the Pope’s
encyclical (Roberts 2016: 104, 132–34) – provided the main impulse for
the massive proliferation of corporatism, in many ways this static instru-
ment of conflict avoidance fit better in authoritarian regimes with their
limited pluralism, than in dynamic fascism with its centralizing totalitar-
ianism. After all, the unbounded charismatic leadership that drove fas-
cism was averse to firm institutional structures and reluctant to give
societal groupings the slightest autonomy and involvement in decision-
making. Accordingly, Hitler never instituted corporatism in Germany but
completely revamped the trade unions and had the Nazis take control of
business associations (Broszat 1969: 117–29, 180–218; Bracher 1979:
247–69, 279–98). Even Mussolini, who announced the principles of
corporatism in 1926/27, was reluctant to institutionalize the system; only
in 1939 did he finally implement corporatist structures.31
Authoritarian rulers, by contrast, did not seek total power, but based
their regimes on an accommodation with conservative elites. Tripartite
mechanisms of interest representation fit their de-mobilizational project
well. Corporatism furthered sociopolitical stability by submitting trade
unions to government control32 and by establishing a good deal of

29
On the role of Catholicism, see Pollard (2017). See for Portugal Adinolfi and Pinto (2014:
165) and Cardoso and Ferreira (2017); for Spain Rial (1986: 206–7), Jerez Mir and
Luque (2014: 183), and Sánchez Recio (2017); for Austria Tálos (2013: 123–45) and
Botz (2017), and for Brazil Moraes (1978) and Martinho and Pinto (2007).
30
On corporatism’s attraction and spread in Latin America, see recently Pasetti (2019:
151–55), Pinto (2019a: 111–13, 134–36), and especially Pinto (2019b).
31
Morgan (2009: 157–60); Pinto (2017: 10–12); Adinolfi (2019: 6–7, 14–22). Interestingly,
therefore, authoritarian regimes that passed detailed corporatist laws inspired by the
Carta del Lavoro, especially Salazar’s Portugal and Dollfuß’s Austria – rather than
Italy itself – served as specific inspirations for other authoritarian rulers, such as
Brazil’s Vargas or the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas in Greece (Pinto 2017: 33; Kallis
2017: 285–86).
32
Union resistance was a crucial reason for the halting and incomplete implementation of
corporatism, however, especially in a country with a powerful socialist labor movement
such as Austria (Brook-Shepherd 1962: 152–53, 158).
 The Fortification of Regimes with Elements of Fascism 225

influence over business associations, but by allowing for some consult-

ation as well. Therefore, while rarely enacted in full and while not
affecting actual power relations and decision-making very deeply
(Roberts 2016: 49–52, 132–40), corporatist structures were institutional-
ized faster and farther under many authoritarian regimes, such as Austria
(Wiederin 2012),33 Brazil (Moraes 1978; Pinto 2019b: 68–83), Estonia
(Kasekamp 2017a), Latvia, and Portugal (Cardoso and Ferreira 2017),
than in the original innovator, Italy.
Even the non-totalitarian dictatorships imposed greater governmental
control than advocated by corporatist theorists, who sought to foment a
good deal of cooperative self-regulation among societal sectors.34
Autocratic rulers’ interest in clear predominance overrode Catholic teach-
ings and the ample literature on corporatism. In sum, this fascist innov-
ation contributed significantly to the strengthening and hardening of
many authoritarian regimes during the interwar years.

Fascist Imports – but Authoritarian Regimes

While fascism’s enormous appeal and the initial successes of Mussolini
and Hitler propelled a great deal of borrowing, these fascist imports did
not undermine the authoritarian nature of the importing regimes. Instead,
the transplants from dynamic totalitarianism did not flourish under sober,
stodgy, and exclusionary authoritarianism. These alien elements always
remained limited in their effectiveness and subject to quick atrophy or
abandonment. In particular, mobilizational mechanisms like regime
parties, youth movements, or paramilitary forces never elicited much
participatory commitment or developed independent energy. What grew
organically in the vibrant jungle of totalitarianism found little nourish-
ment and space in the staid, trimmed yard of authoritarianism.
That fascist shoots did not prosper when grafted onto authoritarian
roots holds major conceptual and theoretical significance. This incom-
patibility corroborates the validity of the longstanding distinction
between totalitarianism and authoritarianism, which Juan Linz (1964,
2000) explained most convincingly and applied productively to the study
of interwar dictatorships (Linz 2002). Despite their family resemblance as

33
Even dictator Kurt Schuschnigg (1937: 246–47, 293–95) acknowledged that corporat-
ism’s implementation advanced more slowly than hoped.
34
For Austria, e.g., see Tálos (2013: 123–45); for Portugal, Cardoso and Ferreira (2017:
175–77); for Spain, Sánchez Recio (2017: 210).
226 The Spread of Fascist Movements

members of the reactionary, right-wing camp, these two regime types

form different species. Attempts at creating hybrids (see recently Pinto
and Kallis 2014; Kallis 2016) were rare and lacked viability, as the rapid
implosion of Romania’s National Legionary State confirms (Chapter 8).
Rather than effecting a true fusion with fascism as a regime, authoritarian
rulers who sought a political boost from fascist imports deliberately
contained and controlled these alien elements and deviated little, and only
temporarily, from exclusionary, de-mobilizational trajectories. This path
dependency is most visible in the longest-lasting autocracies installed
during the interwar years, Salazar’s Portugal and Franco’s Spain, which
by the 1950s had turned into immobile fossils.
But although the import of fascist elements did not transform author-
itarianism’s nature, it further depressed political liberty. To the extent that
government-controlled mass parties, youth movements, paramilitary
forces, propaganda agencies, and secret police forces were at all effective,
they moved countries even farther away from democracy. Consequently,
competitive authoritarianism hardened into full autocracy; dictatorships
turned more controlling and repressive; common citizens enjoyed even
less room; and oppositionists suffered harsher repression. By offering
incumbent rulers an ample toolkit for concentrating and consolidating
their power, fascism thus provided another impulse for the predominantly
authoritarian wave of the interwar years.


This chapter shows that, despite its tremendous appeal, outside of
Germany fascism spread only in bits and pieces during the interwar years.
The new regime model, which offered the strongest antidote to commun-
ism, inspired imitative movements in a wide range of countries, but
radical-right upstarts succeeded only exceptionally in taking power;
therefore, fascism rarely diffused as a full-scale regime (except as a prod-
uct of Nazi imposition during WWII). And while Mussolini’s and Hitler’s
successes induced many authoritarian governments to embark on emula-
tion efforts, these imports remained confined to selective elements of
fascism, which lacked the dynamism to transform authoritarian rule into
fascist totalitarianism. For these reasons, the 1920s and 1930s saw the
proliferation of authoritarian regimes that in their conservative insistence
on elite rule and hierarchical order differed greatly from fascism’s regen-
erational ferment and mobilizational dynamism.
 Conclusion 227

Given the normative attraction of Mussolini’s innovation, its rare

diffusion is surprising. The main reason is that established elites strongly
preferred exclusionary, hierarchical authoritarianism to fascism’s uncon-
trollable totalitarianism. While both currents of the reactionary right
cooperated in fighting the specter of communism and in undermining
liberal democracy, they disagreed on the replacement regime. Both sides
saw the enemy of their enemy only as a temporary ally, whom they
wanted to use for their own purposes, and then overpower and subjugate.
Opportunism, not love, guided the relationship of authoritarian conserva-
tives and totalitarian fascists.
In the resulting tensions and conflicts, conservative establishment
sectors nearly always won out. Except for Germany, elites commanded
predominant sociopolitical clout. Because Eastern and Southern Europe
and Latin America were much less developed, mechanisms of elite control
such as rural clientelism were fairly widespread, whereas the mobilizable
urban masses receptive to charismatic leaders were still limited in size.
Therefore, fascist movements never achieved the massive groundswell of
support that could have pushed reluctant conservative elites to cede
government power. Because fascists garnered only low to middling sup-
port in Europe’s periphery and Latin America, conservative elites
remained in control and imposed or maintained authoritarian rule, some-
times in opportunistic cooperation with fascist movements, sometimes via
preemptive coups to block the extreme right’s ascent.
The following chapter examines through country case studies how the
complicated relationship between conservative authoritarians and fascist
totalitarians brought the proliferation of autocracy during the 1920s and
1930s and how, depending on the relative strength of the reactionary
right’s two wings, these processes of authoritarian imposition clustered
into two distinct paths.
 8

Conservative–Fascist Relations and the Autocratic

Reverse Wave

The preceding chapter elucidated the paradox that despite its strong nor-
mative and political appeal, fascism rarely spread and did not find full-scale
adoption outside Germany. Instead, powerful establishment sectors that
rejected liberal democracy for its presumed weakness imposed conservative
authoritarianism rather than totalitarian fascism. In the installation of this
hierarchical, exclusionary type of autocracy, fascist movements played
different roles, depending on their political and paramilitary strength.
Wherever conservative sectors clearly predominated, fascist movements
merely provided the shock troops with which these elites combated their
enemies, especially the radical left; once the fascists had fulfilled their task
as auxiliaries, they were subjugated to authoritarian rule. By contrast,
when radical right-wingers surged in strength and seemed about to take
power on their own, status-quo defenders repressed this acute threat, often
quite violently. In these instances, conservative elites destroyed democracy
and imposed authoritarian rule to forestall a fascist takeover.
Thus, when fascists helped defeat the left, they contributed to the
counter-diffusion against the perceived threat of communist diffusion. By
contrast, when fascist challenges themselves prompted autocratic crack-
downs, these regime changes were part of a second process of diffusion and
counter-diffusion: Where fascism grew to a threatening degree, this spread
of radical-right movements provoked its own conservative reaction. In
these cases, democracy’s overthrow was triggered by an acute threat not
from the communist left but from the fascist right, which in turn had grown
in part out of fear of the communist left. Accordingly, a secondary sequence
of diffusion and counter-diffusion was nested in the right-wing backlash
against the revolutionary left – giving rise to the double deterrent effect that

228
 Conservative Usage of Fascist Movements 229

this book highlights as the fundamental mechanism driving the autocratic

reverse wave. Thus, fascism’s rise as an extreme counter-model to com-
munism made diffusion processes during the interwar years unusually
complex. As Chapter 2 explained, this reverse wave was not one clear,
crisp surge, but a jumble of riptides and undertows.
Yet, despite this complexity, the spread of fascist movements power-
fully contributed to democracy’s downfall, along both paths of autocratic
imposition. Regardless of whether fascists were the frontline henchmen or
the first victims of the new dictatorships, political liberalism suffered the
main damage. Across Eastern and Southern Europe and Latin America,
rising fascism helped cause democracy’s forcible replacement by autoc-
racy – or the hardening of existing authoritarian regimes. As regards the
latter development, Portugal’s António de Oliveira Salazar, for example,
managed to transform an unstable military regime into a durable dicta-
torship by playing more liberal-leaning sectors off against emerging
groupings of radical right-wingers. Similarly, in Hungary’s competitive-
authoritarian regime, the strengthening of fascism in the 1930s led to
growing power concentration and harsher repression, moving the country
toward full autocracy. In sum, fascism propelled the reverse wave of the
interwar years by assisting or provoking the overthrow of democracy in
many cases, as well as the exacerbation of extant authoritarian regimes.
To explain these complex developments, the next section begins by
examining the cases of Spain, Brazil, and Portugal, where conservative
elites used fascist movements to impose or harden authoritarianism, and
then subjugated their erstwhile allies to their own exclusionary, de-
mobilizational rule. This section is followed by sections investigating
Estonia, Romania, and Austria, where conservative status-quo defenders
preempted fascist power grabs by overthrowing democracy, repressing the
extreme-right challengers, and installing hierarchical authoritarianism. The
subsequent section analyzes Hungary, where authoritarian incumbents in
the 1930s contained a radical-right regime insider who tried to transform
the existing autocracy into fascist totalitarianism. In all of these struggles
advancing along different pathways, conservative establishment sectors
uniformly won – while the main loser was political freedom.

    

   
Their fundamental ideological affinities as right-wingers, especially
shared anti-communism, anti-liberalism, and nationalism, prompted
230 Conservative–Fascist Relations

frequent efforts by conservative, authoritarian elites and fascist move-

ments to collaborate. But due to their equally important ideological and
political differences (Blinkhorn 1990), each side wanted to use the other
as an instrument to achieve its own goals. Therefore, distrust and rivalry
were rife. These tensions often erupted into violent conflicts, which their
command over organized coercion invariably allowed conservative
authoritarians to win.
Where established elites had predominant influence and control over
police and military, conservative groupings and their leaders opportunis-
tically used fascist movements to attack their political enemies, especially
left-wing parties and unions, and thus win or consolidate dictatorial
power. Because the advocates of elitist, exclusionary authoritarianism
often lacked widespread popular support or paramilitary strength, they
temporarily relied on radical right-wingers as auxiliaries for boosting
their strength. In line with this book’s central argument, they sought this
instrumental collaboration especially when perceiving a significant threat
from the revolutionary left. Yet as soon as conservative authoritarians
had grabbed or consolidated power, they used their institutional pos-
itions, especially command over organized coercion, forcefully asserted
their supremacy, and marginalized or suppressed their former allies.
Thus, they reneged on the promised or suggested cooperation with fascist
movements and subordinated the extreme right to their autocratic will.
Fascist movements, of course, did not want to remain junior partners.
Therefore, they cooperated with authoritarian conservatives only in the
hope of overpowering these elite sectors and claiming the top spot for
their charismatic leader. Fascists thus wanted to use conservative forces as
stirrup holders to swing themselves into the saddle, as Mussolini and then
Hitler had so skillfully done. Consequently, these upstart movements
allied with establishment forces only during fluid conjunctures, when
seeing a chance to grab power for themselves. By contrast, when well-
entrenched conservative autocrats sought to coopt rising fascist move-
ments, those newcomers rejected the Machiavellian offer. Such political
absorption would have siphoned the mobilizational energy out of fascist
movements and turned them into empty shells.
Thus, due to their fundamental goal differences, political cooperation
between conservative authoritarians and fascist totalitarians never rested
on a stable compromise. Instead, each side tried hard to gain the upper
hand and subdue their tactical ally. The precarious nature of these oppor-
tunistic collaboration projects reveals again the underlying gulf between
these divergent types of right-wing politics. They never formed a true,
 Conservative Usage of Fascist Movements 231

organic hybrid. Instead, each side in this instrumental cooperation merely

waited for a good chance to overpower the other. In Southern and Eastern
Europe and in Latin America, elite predominance uniformly guaranteed
conservatives victory in these struggles, which ushered in authoritarian –
not totalitarian – rule.

Using Fascism to Impose Authoritarianism via Civil War:

Franco in Spain
The most dramatic case of this cunning use of fascist support unfolded in
Spain in the late 1930s, when the military coup makers around General
Francisco Franco enlisted the fascist Falange to defeat the left-wing
defenders of the democratic republic in a lengthy, bloody civil war. Yet
once the new dictator achieved victory, he instituted traditionalist
authoritarianism, rather than fascist totalitarianism. Accordingly, he
deprived his earlier allies of political influence and assigned them only
limited roles in his hierarchical, de-mobilizational regime. Instead, con-
servative establishment sectors, especially military generals, the Catholic
Church, clientelistic politicians, large landowners, and business people,
sustained the long-lasting autocracy.
The different currents of the reactionary right forged a temporary
alliance and cooperated in a violent regime change because they faced a
serious threat from a rather radical left,1 which became especially acute in
the mid-1930s and turned even graver after the civil war erupted in July
1936. After all, Spain’s Second Republic underwent a process of ideo-
logical radicalization and political polarization that eventually escalated
to dangerous levels. The downfall of Miguel Primo de Rivera’s authori-
tarian regime in 1930, examined in Chapter 5, opened the way for
spiraling mobilization. By prohibiting the old parties, the dictatorship of
the 1920s had weakened traditional political elites and had corroded
the clientelistic linkages through which they had controlled good parts
of the citizenry, especially in backward Spain’s rural areas with their
large populations (Payne 1999: 41; Herold-Schmidt 2004: 398–400;
Casanova 2014: 13, 28; Riley 2019: 87–92).
In the new democracy instituted in 1931, party competition stimulated
reform efforts that the initially fragmented conservative sectors (Grandío
2016: 122, 128) had difficulty containing. Fueled by rivalries between

1
Lannon (2007: 144) emphasizes, “The fundamental agenda in Spain . . . throughout the
1920s and 1930s was social revolution and how to avoid it.”
232 Conservative–Fascist Relations

anarchists, communists, and socialists,2 Spain’s left and center-left

“unwisely” and “prematurely” (Loewenstein 1935b: 758) spearheaded
ambitious transformation projects (good recent overviews in López
Villaverde 2017: 301–54; and Berman 2019: 269–73). Most important
and controversial were stringent anticlerical measures (Gil Robles [1968]
2006: 54, 207; Linz 1978b: 153, 167–68, 178, 180; Brinkmann 2017:
413–15), a sharp reduction in the size of the bloated military, a forceful
revamping of rural labor markets (Macarro 2012: 42–46), and land
reform, which was designed to rectify the stark inequality in property
ownership and alleviate the grinding poverty of small peasants and land-
less laborers (Casanova 2014: 39–53).
As conservative sectors, which took radical rhetoric at face value and
overestimated the danger (Carter 1936: 653), saw increasing threats to
their core interests and ideological causes, loss aversion induced them to
mobilize their own forces, coordinate their activities, and offer fairly
intransigent opposition.3 The fluidity and fragmentation of Spain’s party
system brought frequent government crises and significant shifts in the
ruling coalition. After the left and center-left dominated from 1931 to
1933, the center-right and a newly formed, encompassing Catholic and
right-wing party (Álvarez Tardío 2012: 68–77) controlled the helm in
1934 and 1935, stopped the reformist impulse, and blocked or reversed
earlier changes.4 In response, the left and center-left set aside their sub-
stantial disagreements,5 formed a Popular Front (Payne 2006: 143–69),
and won a narrow victory in a hotly contested election in early 1936,
which was marred by incidents and irregularities (Gil Robles [1968]
2006: 473–75, 490–95, 519–20, 541–51, 555–72; Ranzato 2014:
92–93, 128–30). Thereafter, Spain’s left-wingers resumed their push for
profound and wide-ranging change with redoubled energy (Ranzato
2014: 171–73, 202, 319).

2
Linz (1978b: 145, 149, 162–63, 167, 186); Schauff (2006: 31, 43, 45, 48, 52); see also
Payne (2006: 277–91).
3
Gil Robles ([1968] 2006: 86, 94–95, 189–90, 821–22); Casanova (2014: 81–86, 100–3,
136–42); Grandío (2016: 125). Gil Robles ([1968] 2006: 173, 176, 179, 185, 188, 804),
the leader of the main right-wing party, admits the narrow-minded defense of their
privileges by important elite sectors.
4
Gil Robles ([1968] 2006: 118, 165–67, 185–87); Payne (2006: 107–14, 134–35);
Casanova (2014: 119–20); López Villaverde (2017: 53–59).
5
These differences on major issues, especially property ownership, were openly mentioned
in the manifesto for the 1936 election, reprinted in Bernecker (1980: 64, 67–68). On this
issue, see Payne (2006: 162–63).
 Conservative Usage of Fascist Movements 233

The country’s zig-zag course added fuel to the fire of sociopolitical

polarization. All sides saw their expectations jeopardized (Linz 1978b:
154–55, 186). The initial enactment of profound reforms activated
intense loss aversion among the right, which held exaggerated fears of
communism (Grandío 2016: 133, 139), while the reforms’ subsequent
blockage or reversal similarly activated loss aversion among the left
(Araquistáin 1935: 257), which held exaggerated fears of fascism
(Puigsech 2016: 98). As conflict increased, both ideological poles radical-
ized (Schauff 2006: 26–28, 31, 48, 57, 64–66; González Calleja 2011:
387–93). Seeing how democracy had enabled the advance of the left and
how electoral competition had propelled reform efforts, more and more
conservative sectors came to embrace authoritarian rule as an essential
safeguard (González Calleja 2011: 28, 51, 60, 66–68, 120 173; Casanova
2014: 137–46, 169–71; Blaney 2016: 417–18). Leftist sectors, in turn,
lost trust that democracy would allow for effective change and therefore
came to advocate revolution (Buchanan 2002: 40, 48; Macarro 2012:
46–57). And because left-wingers were more prone to initiate contentious
collective action, their radicalization proved especially deleterious for the
fate of Spanish democracy (Payne 2006: 54–55, 71–84, 94–95, 134–35,
144, 352–53, 360–61).
Indeed, anarchists, who had always rejected liberal democracy
(Gabriel 2016: 105–11; see also Payne 2006: 20–22), spearheaded three
uprisings. More consequentially, after the left’s electoral defeat in 1933,
the radical wing of the Socialist Party prepared a revolution (Rey Reguillo
2012: 77–79). When the moderate right entered the government in late
1934, left-wing socialists unleashed a wave of strikes across the country,
which culminated in “an ill-advised revolt” (Loewenstein 1935b: 758),
namely a bloody and brutally repressed uprising in the northern mining
region of Asturias.6 Predictably, as the radical left resorted to revolution-
ary violence in its defensive struggle against right-wing advances and in its
resolute push for profound transformations, the right became ever more
fearful (Gil Robles [1968] 2006: 139–45, 159, 268, 488–89) and its
extremist sectors intensified coup plotting (Schauff 2006: 35–36;
Ranzato 2014: 102–3, 146–49, 212). The failed revolution in Asturias
was therefore a break point in the unraveling of Spanish democracy,

6
Schauff (2006: 31–33); Casanova (2014: 65–73, 114–17, 130–135, 178–80, 183);
Ranzato (2014: 29–33, 38–44, 61). Mann (2004: 311–15, 318–20) depicts the effective
threat posed by the left as limited, and conservative fears as exaggerated, which is in line
with this book’s central argument.
234 Conservative–Fascist Relations

instilling bitterness and distrust on both sides of the deepening ideological

divide (for the radical left, see Araquistáin 1935) and intensifying political
and ideological polarization (Linz 1978b: 176–78, 181–83, 187–91).
International experiences, which actors’ reliance on the heuristics of
availability and representativeness exaggerated in their significance and
applicability to Spain, exacerbated radicalization, inflamed conflict, and
thus undermined commitment to democracy. After all, fascist movements
advanced throughout Europe from the early 1930s onward. Most import-
antly, after his Machtergreifung in early 1933, Hitler crushed Europe’s
most powerful labor movement with surprising ease and installed a
totalitarian dictatorship; and in early 1934, conservative autocrat
Engelbert Dollfuß violently destroyed Austria’s Social Democratic Party
as well, as discussed later. These shocking precedents rang alarm bells
among the left, which came to interpret conservative resistance to its own
radicalism as steps toward a fascist takeover – a catastrophe that the left
was determined to forestall with all means, including the uprising of
October 1934.7
Indeed, whereas the right saw the ill-fated revolt in Asturias as a
proactive assault on power, the radical left depicted it as “a ‘preventive
revolution,’ chiefly inspired by the fatal example of German Socialism,
which surrendered [to Hitler] without a struggle, and of Austrian
Socialism, which was vanquished in a struggle that came too late”
(Araquistáin 1935: 252; see also 251, 256–58; and Payne 2006: 71–72,
345). Swept away by cognitive shortcuts, radical socialists saw even the
political activity of the moderate right, which had committed to the
electoral route, disavowed fascism (Álvarez Tardío 2012: 71–73,
76–77), stayed away from coup plotting, and did not use the Asturias
revolution as a pretext to push for the imposition of authoritarianism
(Linz 1978b: 177–78, 191), as “undisguised Fascism. All of this, and
what was sure to follow, was Fascism – not frank and rough . . . as in
Italy and Germany – but astute and concealed, as in Portugal [and]
Austria” (Araquistáin 1935: 252, 257; similarly 261).8
Considering these problematic analogies drawn via the representative-
ness heuristic, the leading US historian of Spain during this time period,

7
See quote reproduced in Gil Robles ([1968] 2006: 639); see also Ledesma ([1935] 2017):
101, 140; Prieto ([1936–37] 2000: 16–18); Schauff (2006: 30, 48); and Ranzato (2014:
36–37, 43).
8
“Very few” socialist leaders tried to counteract these misperceptions and exaggerated fears
and warned that “‘supposing that there was preparation for fascism in Spain’ would be an
error” (quoted in Álvarez Tardío 2012: 75).
 Conservative Usage of Fascist Movements 235

Stanley Payne (2006: 353), judges: “The Spanish left drew the wrong
conclusions from foreign examples in every case, whether those of Russia,
Italy, or central Europe. The political analyses carried out by . . . the
revolutionary left . . . had the effect more of masking than illuminating
key realities.” A recent expert concurs, regarding the “alarmism of the left
[as] immeasurably exaggerated” (Brinkmann 2017: 419). In a prescient
analysis that foresaw Spain’s descent into reactionary autocracy, a con-
temporary political scientist had already condemned “the follies of the
Spanish extremists” (Loewenstein 1935b: 759).
Facing these revolutionary impulses, the right, in turn, which had never
firmly committed to democracy,9 and which tended to see communism
behind every major reform proposal, now felt encouraged to confront
left-wing initiatives with all means (Herold-Schmidt 2004: 403–4). In
these ways, Hitler’s high-profile takeover in Germany and other auto-
cratic experiences in Europe exacerbated the tensions and divisions in
Spain. Interpreted in the distorted ways arising from cognitive shortcuts,
these foreign precedents induced left-wing forces to embrace revolution-
ary strategies (Casanova 2014: 117–19, 126–36, 168–69, 180; Ranzato
2014: 43), while motivating the most reactionary sectors to move toward
violent resistance and coup preparations (Gil Robles [1968] 2006: 201–6,
365–67, 380, 484; Casanova 2014: 86–90, 156, 172–76).10
Radicalization and polarization accelerated with the Popular Front
victory of early 1936, which brought a renewal and further intensification
of the reform drive (Rey Reguillo 2012: 181–83; Casanova 2014:
159–60, 198; Berman 2019: 278–79). The range and depth of socio-
economic measures adopted by the left-wing government, which included
hard-core groupings led by a “Spanish Lenin,”11 scared establishment
sectors. Their power was at stake as well, because massive land reform
was bound to undermine the control of traditional elites over the peas-
antry and to weaken clientelistic politicians (Payne 2006: 218–21); eco-
nomic state interventionism would diminish the clout of big business; and

9
Gil Robles ([1968] 2006: 201, 572) admits this weak commitment. See also Grandío
(2016: 123, 126, 132–34, 138, 145) and Rey Reguillo (2016a: 149–53).
10
The leader of the large right-wing party formed in 1933, however, always stayed away
from coup plotting (Rey Reguillo 2016a: 157–59).
11
Gil Robles ([1968] 2006: 449–54, 650–52, 684–87); Ranzato (2014: 225–29, 235–37,
300, 331–32); see also the contemporary observations of Carter (1936: 654, 661). The
radicalization of one wing provoked strong tensions and conflicts inside the Socialist
Party, where in the words of one leader, “hateful phobia has substituted the magnificent
camaraderie that united us before” (Prieto [1936–37] 2000: 22; see also 25–26).
236 Conservative–Fascist Relations

politically motivated appointments undermined the unity of the military.

Moreover, some changes escaped governmental regulation; in particular,
land-hungry peasants took agrarian redistribution into their own hands
by illegally occupying large holdings.12 Similarly, anticlerical groupings
incinerated numerous churches (Ranzato 2014: 254–65), and a wave of
strikes erupted in mid-1936 (Payne 2006: 253–58).
Due to these left-wing pressures and predictable right-wing resistance,
disturbances, unrest, and violence erupted all over the country and
“led . . . to an atmosphere of undeclared civil war, attested to in state-
ments by all the leading politicians” (Linz 1978b: 180; see also 188,
192–93; Payne 2006: 183, 190, 193–95, 221–24, 239–41, 264–68,
297, 306, 327, 357–64).13 The main anarchist union, of course, publicly
celebrated this massive upsurge of popular contention in May 1936: “The
masses themselves proceeded to action, there was no way of containing
them . . . [There were] thousands and thousands of expropriations, church
burnings, general and partial strikes in the country, which all ended with
unprecedented success for workers” (document in Bernecker 1980: 115).
A contemporary British observer also highlighted the “radicalization of
the masses” and “the pressure from below of social-revolutionary forces”
(Carter 1936: 651, 657; see also 658; see recently Brinkmann 2017:
425–26).
Conservative elites thus seemed to face multiple and fundamental
assaults on their influence, privileges, and rights. As bottom-up pressures
mounted, they saw the sociopolitical order tumbling and believed that
Spain was sliding into chaos.14 Consequently, in 1936 elite sectors and,
increasingly, middle-class groupings were gripped by “the great fear” of a
true revolution.15 The leader of Spain’s major right-wing party, José

12
See documents in Bernecker (1980: 210–19); see also Schauff (2006: 46); González
Calleja (2011: 307–9); Ranzato (2014: 109–11, 115–23, 175–82, 189–91, 197–98,
285–94, 298–300).
13
Indeed, radical Socialist Luis Araquistáin (1935: 261) already wrote in 1935, after the
repressed revolution of October 1934 in Asturias, “The civil war continues.”
14
Gil Robles ([1968] 2006: 628–60, 672–75, 682–87, 704–7, 765–70, 823–27); Payne
(1999: 187, 189, 204, 211); Casanova (2014: 161–64). While López Villaverde (2017:
409; see also 65) denounces claims of “chaos and unstoppable violence” as a “myth,” his
own analysis amply documents the severe conflicts and violence erupting in 1936 (pp.
373–90).
15
See especially Ranzato (2014: 107, 123, 167, 190, 368–69); see also Carr and Fusi (1989:
2–4, 16). As González Calleja (2011: 329–39) emphasizes, these threat perceptions were
exaggerated, and there was deliberate fear-mongering as well. But Ranzato’s (2014)
thorough study shows that a good deal of this panic was genuine and reflected
real concern.
 Conservative Usage of Fascist Movements 237

María Gil Robles ([1968] 2006: 681, 684), saw “a climate of civil war” in
which “the visible heads of revolutionary extremism . . . made efforts to
make a violent confrontation inevitable.” Due to these threat perceptions,
establishment forces fought back, fueling the spiral of violence that was
engulfing the country (Rey Reguillo 2016b: 433–34). Moreover, growing
numbers of generals joined the coup plotting (Gil Robles [1968] 2006:
498–500, 623–24; Payne 2006: 199–200, 308–15).
When this radicalization and polarization started to escalate, the eldest
son of former dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera in late 1933 founded the
Falange (Phalanx) and in subsequent years merged several radical-right
splinter groupings into his fascist movement and its paramilitary wing
(González Calleja 2011: 138–72). Ideologically, José Antonio Primo de
Rivera’s effort was inspired especially by Mussolini’s regime in Italy;16
politically, it took encouragement from Hitler’s recent takeover in
Germany, which demonstrated fascism’s prospects of success (Casanova
2014: 92, 95; see also González Calleja 2011: 156–57). By trying to win
mass support for right-wing totalitarianism (Casanova 2014: 468), the
new leader of Spanish fascism also sought to avoid the vulnerability of his
father’s authoritarian regime, which had crumbled due to its weak sup-
port base.17 Through mobilizational efforts, the son sought to lay the
ground for a stronger, more resilient dictatorship. Moreover, with his
paramilitary forces, he intended to crush the radical left, for instance by
offering the center-right government his counterrevolutionary services
during the Asturias rebellion of late 1934 (González Calleja 2011:
236–41).18
But due to the clout of conservative elites in Spain’s backward society
(Carr and Fusi 1989: 7–10), the Falange made only very slow advances in

16
Payne (1999: 161–62, 234); Albanese and Hierro (2016: 28–34). To emphasize this
ideological parentage, Primo de Rivera scheduled the Falange’s founding meeting for
the eleventh anniversary of Mussolini’s “March on Rome” (González Calleja 2011: 169).
17
Payne (1999: 43, 73, 75, 116). General Franco also sought to avoid the weaknesses of
Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship (Payne 1999: 39, 240, 242, 259–60). Therefore, during the
civil war, he already began to institute a firm organizational structure (Payne 1998: 108),
in which he forcefully integrated the Falange, thus thwarting the younger Primo de
Rivera’s ultimate goals.
18
One of Spain’s early fascist leaders, Ramiro Ledesma Ramos ([1935] 2017: 171–77,
198–99, 201–4), criticized the Falange for not taking better advantage of the counter-
revolutionary opportunity provided by left-wing preparations for revolution. But estab-
lishment forces left little room for fascist power grabs as the military quickly repressed the
radical-left uprising of October 1934.
238 Conservative–Fascist Relations

its initial years.19 After all, large landowners, business people, the
Catholic Church, and the military defended their privileges on their
own, and with the electoral victory of a new moderate-right party in
1933, they hoped to block and reverse the earlier reform efforts
(González Calleja 2011: 200–1, 247; Casanova 2014: 113, 119–21,
126–27). The Popular Front triumph of early 1936, however, foiled these
conservative expectations and provoked calls for more dramatic counter-
measures against the renewed advance of the left (Vincent 2009: 372).
The resulting upsurge of polarization and contention drove many new
supporters into the Falange’s ranks.20 In turn, the left-wing government
soon responded to the growing fascist threat by imprisoning the Falange
leadership and by executing the young Primo de Rivera early in the civil
war (Payne 2006: 192–93). As Spain slid into the inferno of bloody
fratricide (Ranzato 2014: 324–30), his martyrdom motivated additional
recruits to join the fascist movement (Casanova 2014: 247).
Because in 1936 both poles of the ideological spectrum saw a revolu-
tionary situation arise, coup plotting by the right intensified (Payne 2006:
308–15; González Calleja 2011: 340–52; Ranzato 2014: 335–60; López
Villaverde 2017: 393–98, 412–18). Interestingly, the predominance of
conservative elites among right-wing groupings entailed reliance on this
top-down, typically authoritarian countermeasure, rather than on
bottom-up mobilization along fascist lines, which the Falange was too
weak to foment anyway. This contrasted with Italy, where Mussolini’s
shock troops suppressed the left with massive violence and thus prepared
the seizure of government power (Linz 1978b: 144, 192, 197).
But the military uprising of July 1936, triggered by left-wingers’ assas-
sination of a prominent right-wing leader (Payne 2006: 315, 332–34),
brought only partial success. The coup leaders did not manage to grab
national power, as Miguel Primo de Rivera had done in 1923. Instead,
Spain was so deeply split that the republican government retained its grip
on good parts of the country. Unusually, the armed forces themselves
divided: A substantial minority, about a quarter of the officer corps
(Mann 2004: 339), defended the incumbent democracy, often out of
principled commitment to legality (Linz 2002: 66). Moreover, leftist

19
Ledesma ([1935] 2017: 209–15); Blinkhorn (1990: 129–30); Payne (1999: 115, 134,
164–65, 183–84); Gallego (2016: 186–87, 194–96, 201); Riley (2019: 110).
20
Gil Robles ([1968] 2006: 573, 688–91, 709); Payne (1999: 199, 207); Herold-Schmidt
(2004: 415, 430); Parejo Fernández (2012: 142–48); Casanova (2014: 92, 96, 155, 169);
Ranzato (2014: 33–34).
 Conservative Usage of Fascist Movements 239

parties and labor unions, fired up especially by militant anarchists and

radicalized socialists, were determined to combat the right-wing plotters and
formed militias in industrial and mining centers and among the rural poor. For
these reasons, the coup makers unexpectedly faced widespread armed resist-
ance and were compelled to fight a dangerous civil war (Casanova 2014:
187–92). In fact, because the republican government controlled most of the
major cities and industries (Lannon 2007: 154), the rebellious officers initially
found themselves in a precarious position (Carter 1936: 647; Gil Robles
[1968] 2006: 726–28, 743–45; Vincent 2009: 373–74).
Pressed to the wall (Ranzato 2014: 365), General Franco and his co-
conspirators were eager to complement their regular troops with fascist
militias that compensated for their limited military training with ideo-
logical fervor (Gil Robles [1968] 2006: 728–36; Schauff 2006: 141). The
Falange, in turn, aware of its weakness and incapacity to grab power on
its own (Gil Robles [1968] 2006: 716–18; González Calleja 2011:
276–79, 362–69, 395), was willing to support the rebellious officers
and fight fanatically for the counterrevolutionary cause (Payne 1999:
170, 172–74, 197–201, 204–5). The fascists also helped the generals
mobilize civilian support and thus alleviate the military’s political isol-
ation. By contrast to the conservative, traditionalist elites in the coup
coalition, “the Falange offered the prospect of modernity and dynamism”
(Vincent 2009: 374; see also 379; and Linz 2002: 67).
A crucial motive for the fascists to join the coup makers was that the
civil war’s outbreak unleashed massive revolutionary efforts by the rad-
ical left, which spearheaded a rash of factory and land expropriations.21
Moreover, anticlericalism provoked an orgy of violence against the
Catholic Church, costing approximately 6,800 priests and nuns their lives
(Herold-Schmidt 2004: 423–24; Schauff 2006: 108–9; Casanova 2014:
258). Many right-wing politicians and disloyal military officers caught in
areas controlled by the republican forces were massacred as well.22

21
See documents in Bernecker (1980: 192–219, 326–49); see also Herold-Schmidt (2004:
433–36); Schauff (2006: 78, 81, 107–11); Casanova (2014: 199, 205, 294–304). Left-
wing radicals had threatened for years that a coup would unleash a full-scale revolution
(e.g., Araquistáin 1934: 470; see also 466).
22
The outburst of violence and collapse of state authority in Spain’s Republican areas were
“without precedent in other civil wars of the period” (Villa García 2016: 420) and
suggest the strength of the revolutionary ferment that was brewing even before the coup.
As Buchanan (2002: 43, 50–51) emphasizes, the republican administration was no longer
very democratic. Strikingly, Riley’s (2019: 92–105) in-depth analyzes barely touches on
the tremendous radicalization of Spain’s Second Republic and the outburst of revolution-
ary violence in 1936.
240 Conservative–Fascist Relations

In retaliation, the rebel forces inflicted even more widespread, brutal

repression on left-wingers, unionists, and other suspicious elements in
the territories they conquered (Mann 2004: 342–44). Thus, the eruption
of a full-scale revolution, which the coup attempt had sought to forestall
but which it paradoxically ended up provoking, pushed Spain into a
paroxysm of violence, especially in the second half of 1936 (Ruiz 2012:
193–96; Casanova 2014: 201–4, 218, 249). Recent investigations
suggest that right-wingers killed about 100,000 people, and left-
wingers 55–60,000 (Payne 1999: 246; Ruiz 2012: 187; Casanova 2014:
223, 407).23
This extreme polarization drove many young people, even women, to
join the Falange, which therefore grew to a much larger size (Blinkhorn
1990: 132–33; Schauff 2006: 139). By late 1936, the fascist movement
had 36,000 members battling the left, more than all other right-wing
militias combined (Payne 1999: 242–45; Casanova 2014: 348). Besides
reinforcing the military at the front, these zealous fighters also played a
major role in the repression of their ideological enemies and committed
innumerable atrocities (Payne 1999: 245–49; Casanova 2014: 188–89,
201, 226, 228, 230–33). While the Falange hoped that victory over the
radical left would pave the way for realizing its totalitarian ideological
vision, General Franco pursued his own plan to restore the traditional
sociopolitical order and cement it by imposing an authoritarian regime.
Typically, thus, both fascists and conservatives sought to use their ally for
their own ultimate goals.
From the beginning, however, the military leadership was in the
driver’s seat, given their command over organized coercion and the
Falange’s limited strength. As early as late 1936, the army subordinated
the fascist militia to its control in order to coordinate the counterrevolu-
tionary forces in the dangerous civil war (Casanova 2014: 349–50). Soon
thereafter, General Franco used the weakening of the Falange’s leadership
after José Antonio Primo de Rivera’s execution to imprison fascist die-
hards, decree the Falange’s fusion with other reactionary formations, and
put himself – not a fascist – at the helm of this single party.24 And when
Franco began to reconstruct the collapsed state in early 1938, he assigned
most of the crucial ministries, such as defense and finance, to military
officers or traditional conservatives. Falangists received only less powerful

23
Thomas (2017) provides an openly ideological perspective on this issue.
24
Payne (1999: 259–73); Herold-Schmidt (2004: 430); Schmidt (2004: 448–49); Casanova
(2014: 350–55); Riley (2019: 106).
 Conservative Usage of Fascist Movements 241

positions, though in areas that were especially salient for their ideological
vision, such as capital–labor relations.
The fascist officials, of course, sought to promote their own ambitious
goals. For this purpose, they borrowed heavily from Italy by instituting
corporatist arrangements modeled on Mussolini’s Carta del Lavoro, as
Falange founder Primo had advocated (Payne 1999: 276, 281, 297–98;
Casanova 2014: 357–59, 469). Interestingly, the crafty Franco also gave
his emerging autocracy somewhat of a fascist veneer. As one example, he
embraced the Führer principle with his title el caudillo de España (see
Payne 1999: 260, 269). But the title’s second half – por la gracia de Dios
(by the grace of God) – signaled Franco’s Catholic conservatism and firm
alliance with the traditionalist church hierarchy. Thus, Franco gave
Spain’s fascists a role in his incipient autocracy, but guaranteed his own
predominance by accumulating top positions such as military commander
and head of state (Schauff 2006: 138–39).
Besides the goal of using the Falange’s fanatical energies for defeating
the radical left, Franco’s concessions and gestures toward fascism were
also designed to guarantee military assistance and political support from
fascist Italy and Nazi Germany (Preston 1990: 138–41). Because the coup
makers failed to dislodge the Republican government quickly and instead
faced a determined counterattack, they clamored to the two fascist great
powers for help. This support allowed the rebellious officers to escape
from dire straits early on: On Italian and German planes, Franco trans-
ferred reliable troops from Spain’s Moroccan protectorate to the home-
land, where the Republican government had the upper hand right after
the uprising (Casanova 2014: 194–95, 261–62, 268–69). Soon, tens of
thousands of fascist paramilitaries, “volunteer” troops from Italy, and air
force units from Germany fought on Franco’s side. Moreover, the Axis
powers supplied ample hardware and ammunition (Casanova 2014:
268–69, 278–79, 380; listing in Schauff 2006: 188).
In return for this massive assistance, Italy and Germany hoped to
imprint their ideological model on Spain’s nascent autocracy and win a
compliant ally for their aggressive, imperialist plans on the international
front. Accordingly, Mussolini’s and Hitler’s emissaries pressured Franco to
unify his political supporters in a fascist-style single party (Albanese and
Hierro 2016: 41–43, 47–48). To please his international benefactors, the
Spanish caudillo made concessions to the fascist Falange and imported
some Italian and German innovations, such as corporatist labor represen-
tation (Payne 1999: 276, 281, 297–98; Casanova 2014: 343, 350, 359).
Thus, Franco insinuated his willingness to jump on the fascist bandwagon.
242 Conservative–Fascist Relations

But Spain’s new dictator acted in a purely opportunistic way and

prioritized his political self-interests and Spain’s national interests
(Payne 2008: 39, 45). Consequently, soon after he had won the civil
war, he changed course. Once he no longer depended on the backing of
fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, he turned his autocratic regime away
from fascism and moved systematically toward traditionalist, Catholic
authoritarianism (Payne 1999: 363–66, 387–89, 401–2; Albanese and
Hierro 2016: 41–43, 49). Moreover, Franco failed to reciprocate for all
the foreign help and refused to join his former benefactors in WWII,
despite strong pressure from the German dictator (Payne 1999: 330,
333–37). Although the Falange pushed as well for Spain to participate
in the attack on the homeland of Bolshevism, Franco insisted on keeping
his civil-war-ravaged nation out of another epic struggle and allowed only
a division of volunteers to fight in Russia (Schmidt 2004: 452–53; Payne
2008: 137–40, 146–54). In reaction, Hitler complained bitterly about
Franco,25 criticized his failure to spearhead a “national revolution” along
totalitarian lines, and highlighted the differences of Spanish authoritarian-
ism from Italian fascism and German National Socialism (Picker 2009:
516, 612–13).
The Spanish case thus demonstrates great powers’ limited capacity to
spread fascism. Although Franco had for years depended on Italian and
German help, he got away with disappointing his patrons by instituting
conservative authoritarianism. Outside of Germany’s direct sphere of
influence in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, vertical influence had
surprisingly little impact. The theories of great power promotion dis-
cussed in Chapter 2 elucidate only a small part of autocracy’s spread
during the interwar years.
Similarly, after winning the civil war Franco further clipped the
Falange’s wings and gradually diminished its political clout and role in
the autocratic regime (Carr and Fusi 1989: 25–27; Schmidt 2004:
448–49; Vincent 2009: 377–78). Conversely, traditional elites, especially
the reactionary Catholic Church, big business, and large landowners,
who benefited from the violent reversal of land reform, gained even
greater predominance. Moreover, the military remained the unshakeable
core of the dictatorship. With the coercive re-imposition of sociopolitical
stability, any efforts at mass mobilization died down, and government

25
Payne (1999: 334, 336). Right-wingers across the world, even in faraway Argentina
(Halperin Donghi 2003: 241), criticized Franco’s refusal to have Spain join the crusade
against the center of international communism.
 Conservative Usage of Fascist Movements 243

propaganda focused increasingly on cementing arch-conservative values.

The Axis defeat in WWII gave the caudillo even more latitude to rein in
the Falange and mark the distance of his conservative authoritarianism
from fascism (Preston 1990: 143–47; Albanese and Hierro 2016: 52–54).
In sum, Franco skillfully used Spain’s fascists to crush the radical,
increasingly revolutionary left and institute a hierarchical, de-
mobilizational autocracy, the very prototype of authoritarianism, as dis-
tinct from fascist totalitarianism (Linz 1964; see recently Rey Reguillo
2016a: 159–65; and Berman 2019: 257, 281–83, 328).26 Because the
Falange had won significant support only during the radical upsurge and
stark polarization of 1936, it lost influence quickly when the conflict
moved to the military arena during the civil war, and even more after
that struggle ended. Spanish fascism helped overthrow democracy and
defeat “communism,” but the ultimate winners were conservative advo-
cates of authoritarian rule.

Using Fascism to Impose Authoritarianism via a Self-Coup:

Vargas in Brazil
Conservative adherents of authoritarianism also enlisted fascism to defeat
their foes, boost their own power, and install a full-scale autocracy across
the Atlantic Ocean in Brazil. Averse to the constraints imposed by a fairly
liberal constitution in 1934, President Getúlio Vargas used political
backing from the fascist Integralismo movement founded by Plínio
Salgado to impose an authoritarian dictatorship with a palace coup in
late 1937. Vargas had first taken power through a military coup in 1930,
which dislodged the oligarchic republic instituted after the Brazilian
empire’s downfall in 1889. The new president then embarked on a
program of conservative modernization, stimulating economic develop-
ment through state interventionism and coopting the nascent working
class through paternalistic social programs. But powerful liberal sectors
and business people in São Paulo, which had played a leading role under
the preceding oligarchic regime, started a dangerous uprising in 1932.
Although Vargas won the civil war, he had to make significant conces-
sions in a new constitution, which created a formally democratic regime
(Lima 1986: 84–85, 95–96; Camargo, Pandolfi, et al. 1989: 19, 26–30;
Hentschke 1996: 314–20). While Vargas managed to engineer his

26
In a very ideological and unconvincing discussion, Ealham (2013: 201), by contrast, calls
Franco’s regime “totalitarian.”
244 Conservative–Fascist Relations

election as president (Silva 1980: 52), the new charter confined him to one
official term and required elections for his successor in early 1938. In
1937, the incumbent’s leading supporters indeed picked a candidate to
take over the baton.
However, this prospective successor, José Américo de Almeida, quickly
charted a surprisingly independent path, adopted a strident populist
discourse, and signaled an ideological move to the left (Levine 1970:
140–41, 144; Camargo, Pandolfi, et al. 1989: 165–68, 175–79).
Established elites, military leaders, and middle-class citizens grew con-
cerned about this unexpected radicalism (Camargo, Pandolfi, et al. 1989:
183, 187–88, 239). An independent politician reported: “José Américo
began to campaign as if he were an opposition candidate . . . He scared all
the politicians, all of them, really” (reported in Lima 1986: 127). A regime
insider expressed shock: “Zéamerico is a demagogy [sic] supported by the
Communist organization,” and claimed that the candidate had ample
connections to radical-left groupings. “We are marching toward a
Popular Front . . . And this turns into Spain . . . It is grave, very grave”
(Maciel 1937: 2–3; see also Carvalho 1999: 68–69). Vargas himself
saw a threat to his conservative, state-controlled development strategy –
and his plan to exercise continuing influence as the power behind
the throne. Therefore, the incumbent decided to abort the electoral pro-
cess and impose an authoritarian dictatorship (Camargo, Pandolfi, et al.
1989: 225).
To prepare this drastic move, which he planned very “rationally,”27
Vargas invoked the danger of communism, which had enormous salience
in Brazil. After all, in November 1935, left-wing sectors in the military,28
supported by communist leaders and emissaries of Moscow, had started a
violent uprising in major cities, which the government suppressed only
after considerable bloodshed (Levine 1970: 106–12, 115–22; Camargo,
Pandolfi et al. 1989: 41–52; Pinheiro 1991: chap. 17). This scary chal-
lenge from the revolutionary left, which did pose a realistic threat
(Kubitschek 1979: 59; D’Araujo 2000: 16, 18), instilled deep fear in elites
and broad population sectors and induced them to offer strong support

27
D’Araujo (2000: 15); see also Levine (1970: 148, 176). Camargo, Pandolfi, et al. (1989:
especially 103, 119 n. 5, 209–30, 239) analyze these systematic preparations.
28
As Brazil’s main communist leader, Luiz Carlos Prestes, highlighted, communism easily
gained a foothold inside the armed forces (Prestes 1991: 88), where in the 1920s the
reformist, nationalist tenentes (lieutenants) movement had emerged. In fact, Prestes
himself was a former officer and tenente leader (see also Pinheiro 1991: 195, 217, 296).
 Conservative Usage of Fascist Movements 245

for guaranteeing “law and order.”29 In particular, “the army remained

profoundly shocked by the rebellion of 35,” as an important general
confessed (reported in Lima 1986: 208; see also 100, 107, 128, 133,
207). No wonder that the attempted revolution prompted a firm alliance
between Vargas and the military leadership (Camargo, Pandolfi, et al.
1989: 41, 54–60, 252–53; Carvalho 1999: 64, 68; see also Kubitschek
1979: 72). The 1935 insurrection was a critical juncture that turned anti-
communism into a powerful force in Brazilian politics for many years to
come. Indeed, the military deliberately kept the specter alive through
annual commemorations of the rebellion (Fausto 2006: 75–76).
Leading Vargas aides seem to have genuinely feared the radical left.
Accordingly, when justifying his dictatorial coup of 1937 in a private
exchange with a friend and high-ranking official, Oswaldo Aranha,
Vargas (1937: 2) appealed to these fears by highlighting “the recrudes-
cence of the Communist campaign under the cover of political agitation”
and reported that “the armed forces . . . noticed the alarming advance of
the upsurge of Communism.” Another regime insider wrote to Aranha
that “Communism in Brazil is neither a joke nor an invention [but]
something much graver than one supposes” (Maciel 1937: 2). Similarly,
in 1936 Portugal’s ambassador in Rio de Janeiro informed his foreign
minister about a communist provincial uprising, unrest in the capital, and
“reports that Brazil could wake up from one hour to the next transfigured
into a Soviet republic” (Melo 1936). Thus, even a foreigner without a
direct stake or manipulative interest believed in the ease of a radical-
left takeover.
Moreover, contemporary experiences in Europe, especially the revolu-
tionary tendencies among Spain’s Popular Front and the subsequent civil
war, helped to keep the communist threat salient. For instance, Brazil’s
Commercial Attaché in Rome highlighted “Communism [as] the major
danger for humanity and for us principally” (Sparano 1937: 2). In this
letter of mid-1937, he warned Vargas about “the entry of most dangerous
elements . . . Brazil can from one moment to the next fall into chaos or the
abyss, how it happened in Spain and is about to happen in France,” which
had a Popular Front government as well. Another regime insider also
called attention to contemporary Spain as “the tragedy that still bloodies
Europe” (Maciel 1937: 5). Thus, Vargas’s entourage perceived an
ongoing, looming threat from the radical left.

29
Vargas’ private diary does not suggest any strategic effort to exploit the uprising for
political purposes (Vargas 1995, vol. 1: 444–50).
246 Conservative–Fascist Relations

Given these widespread genuine concerns, Vargas invoked the scare-

crow of communism strategically to justify his long-planned power grab
of late 1937,30 when he canceled the upcoming presidential election,
imposed full autocracy, and decreed a new constitution. Shortly before
this self-coup, the secret service of the fascist Integralismo movement had
drawn up a scenario of another “possible Communist rebellion in order
to prepare an Integralista response” (Deutsch 1999: 304; see also
Trindade 1979: 178 n. 28). Inadvertently or deliberately, military leaders
took this supposedly communist Plano Cohen for real and handed it to
Vargas, who published it to create support for his self-coup (Camargo,
Pandolfi, et al. 1989: 210–225, especially 213–16; D’Araujo 2000:
18–20; see also Lima 1986: 125, 132, 208–9). While this episode shows
the calculated use of an invented radical-left threat, the political payoff of
this ploy, in shoring up backing for Vargas’ authoritarian move among
the citizenry and especially the military, suggests the extent and depth of
anti-communist concerns in Brazil. The president’s overthrow of the
formally democratic regime therefore provoked very little resistance.
The most fervent anti-communists were the Integralists of Plínio
Salgado, Brazil’s – and Latin America’s – largest fascist movement with
several hundred thousand members.31 While influenced by Hitler,
Portugal’s Salazar, and other European right-wingers (Levine 1970:
97–99), Salgado’s “primary model . . . was Italy. Admittedly confused
and undirected prior to his European trip in 1930, Salgado returned . . .
a year later ecstatic over Mussolini’s accomplishments” (Levine 1970:
81). After he had met the Duce in person, Salgado commented: “I left
Italy with the program for action” (cited in Trindade 1979: 76; see also
73–75, 119). Other Integralist leaders also took inspiration primarily
from Mussolini (Trindade 1979: 248–50; Bertonha 2013: 225, 228–29,

30
The new dictator stressed “the recrudescence of the Communist upsurge” in the speech
announcing his coup, and the new constitution evoked the “baneful imminence of civil
war” resulting from “Communist infiltration” (cited in Carone 1982: 11, 142). Vargas
also highlighted the “efficient combating of Communism” when he justified his autocratic
regime to German and Italian audiences in newspaper interviews (cited in Silva 1980:
100–2).
31
Deutsch (1999: 248, 282); Pinto (2019a: 129). As with many fascist movements, schol-
arly estimates of membership vary greatly, from 200,000 (Deutsch 1999: 281) to more
than one million. In mid-1937, the Integralists claimed 1.35 million affiliates, but that
number included teenagers and was probably inflated, e.g., through the non-deletion of
members who had left the movement (Cavalari 1999: 34). Maio and Cytrynowicz’s
(2007: 42) estimates of 500,000 to 800,000 members and 500,000 among Brazil’s three
million voters seem most plausible.
 Conservative Usage of Fascist Movements 247

232, 237–38). As a result, the movement that Salgado founded in

1932 was thoroughly inspired by Italian fascism in its radical and com-
prehensive ideology, its hierarchical, leader-centered organizational struc-
ture, and its elaborate set of symbols and rituals.32 This admiration for
foreign fascism also affected the movement’s militant cadres. In a survey
administered in 1970, 56 percent of former mid- and top-level leaders of
Integralismo listed “sympathy for European fascist regimes” as a motive
for their adherence, second only to “anti-Communism” with 65 percent
(Trindade 1979: 153; see also 152-55, 157-58, 268-69).
Integralismo also maintained close contacts to Mussolini’s govern-
ment, which offered financial subsidies and political and ideological
advice (Diffie 1940: 412–25; Silva Seitenfus 1984: 514–31; Bertonha
2000: 93–96). Thus, by comparison to other fascist movements, espe-
cially in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, Integralismo was more of a
foreign import and less homegrown. Yet, while emulating the main tenets
of the Italian model, Salgado and his leading disciples made some adap-
tations to Brazil, for instance by emphasizing religious themes. Given the
crucial importance of nationalism for the radical right, they also claimed –
rather paradoxically – that Italian-inspired Integralismo sought to recover
Brazil’s national essence! At the same time, they loudly attacked liberal-
democratic principles as foreign imports that did not fit their country’s
needs, and that allowed for the rise of the most dangerous enemy, com-
munism (Cavalari 1999: 146, 149, 151).
Typically, the Integralists’ most fundamental tenet was anti-
communism, proclaimed at every opportunity, and the single most
important motive for citizens to join the fascist movement (Trindade
1979: 152–59, 240–41, 256–57). Consequently, the radical-left uprising
of late 1935 gave Salgado’s organization a big boost by providing striking
proof of the revolutionary threat (Klein 2004: 27, 41; see also Lima 1986:
128–29, 207). The fascists increased their mass membership and won
numerous supporters inside the armed forces by beating up on any
subsequent stirring of left-wing agitation (Silva 2007: 212–13). For this
reason, also, the government deliberately tolerated the fascists, despite
their totalitarian goals. After all, wide segments of state and society
continued to see communism as a menace, especially due to the clandes-
tine, subversive approach it adopted after the suppression of the 1935

32
Trindade (1979: 277–78); Hentschke (1996: 330–31); Cavalari (1999: 212–14);
Trindade (2001: 475, 493–97); Silva (2008: 66–67).
248 Conservative–Fascist Relations

revolt. As Salgado denounced, revolutionary Marxism acted like “a wolf

in sheep’s clothing”; his propagandistic writings inveighed in apocalyptic
terms: “Bolshevism is Satan himself, the archangel of envy, of intrigue, of
criminal darkness” (cited in Cavalari 1999: 150 and 149, respectively).
To President Vargas, Integralismo proved useful for combatting com-
munism and preparing his self-perpetuation in power (Hilton 1972:
16–18). Whereas his political clout had hitherto depended greatly on fluid
alignments, “deals,” and intrigues among state governors and other
regional elites, the rising Integralists constituted the only national-level
party, which also commanded a paramilitary wing (Deutsch 1999: 248,
254, 282). In Brazil’s disaggregated political system, the fascist movement
was an unusually cohesive force – though not nearly as strong and
cohesive as the military, of course.
Noticing this imbalance, the Integralists sought to infiltrate the armed
forces in order to prepare their own eventual bid for power. Due to
ideological affinities, Salgado indeed won many political sympathizers,
which the Army Ministry in 1937 estimated as a quarter of army officers
and half the navy (Levine 1970: 147; Lima 1986: 207; see also 90–91,
158; Hilton 1972: 14–16; Klein 2004: 48–49). But the military leadership
zealously guarded its hierarchical command (Hilton 1972: 29; Deutsch
1999: 303; Klein 2004: 70). This top-down control precluded any inde-
pendent initiatives by Integralist officers, especially a coup. In fact, under
the shock of the communist uprising of 1935, the military leadership
forged an ever firmer alliance with President Vargas, seen as the best
guarantor of sociopolitical stability.
At the same time, the fascist movement’s mass base – while sizable –
remained limited, both in numerical and social terms.33 This clear minor-
ity of Brazilian citizens would certainly be insufficient for an electoral
victory, as even Mussolini’s sympathetic diplomats realized (Silva
Seitenfus 1984: 512, 520–22; see also Klein 2004: 18–19). Integralismo
drew supporters primarily from the middle class and made few inroads
into the nascent working class and especially the vast rural population
(Hilton 1972: 5–6; Trindade 1979: 131–38). In the countryside, land-
owners and traditional politicians maintained firm control through clien-
telistic networks (Klein 2004: 55–57; see also Levine 1970: 159). The

33
One obstacle that the Integralists faced arose from their sympathies for and connections
to the German Nazis, which allowed critics to question their nationalism and attack them
as agents of a foreign great power seeking to subjugate Brazil (Hilton 1972: 10–11; Klein
2004: 47, 62, 81–82).
 Conservative Usage of Fascist Movements 249

Integralists did not wield substantial fire power either, especially after
Vargas outlawed party militias. Consequently, Brazil’s fascists lacked the
capacity to seize power on their own.
In the mid-1930s, Salgado therefore moderated his strategy. Forsaking
a violent assault on government power,34 he committed to legality and
sought gradual electoral advances, especially in the campaign for Vargas’s
presumed succession (Trindade 1979: 163, 176–78; Deutsch 1999:
265–66; Klein 2004: 23–26, 79). To justify this shift before the more
activist, contentious wing of his movement, which feared an abandon-
ment of true fascism (Deutsch 1999: 304; Klein 2004: 52–54), he and his
top aides invoked the success that Hitler had achieved with this pseudo-
democratic approach (Klein 2004: 18, 28; see also Trindade 1979: 246).
In fact, when Salgado realized that Vargas would cancel the elections and
retain the presidency extra-constitutionally, he moderated further and
embraced full collaboration.35 An alliance with the power-hungry presi-
dent, which Mussolini’s Italy encouraged as well (Sparano 1937: 1),
would boost the fascists’ influence and prepare Integralist hegemony over
the coming autocracy (Hilton 1972: 20, 23). Thus, Salgado now hoped to
take power from inside the future dictatorship, sooner or later.
Due to their affinity with Vargas’ anti-communism, the Integralists
were therefore eager to serve as the mass base for the authoritarian
takeover of 1937. While the incumbent relied primarily on the military
to secure his power grab, an allied movement’s street presence could offer
added protection against counterdemonstrations or protests.36 Therefore,
the main architect of Vargas’ self-coup and authoritarian constitution,
Francisco Campos (Campos 1937; Silva 2008), allegedly approached the
Integralists with an enticing suggestion: “Movements like yours never
take power in isolation, without alliances . . . Movements like yours come
to power through alliances . . . And the alliance that I regard as useful for
you is the one with Getúlio . . . Who will benefit the most from this
alliance will be you” (reported in Lima 1986: 110; see also 107–9).

34
A radical minority among Integralist leaders, however, tried to prepare a coup and
therefore sought substantial financial support and arms shipments from fascist Italy.
Italian diplomats in Brazil supported this plan, but Mussolini’s foreign minister eventu-
ally vetoed it out of fear of antagonizing President Vargas (Silva Seitenfus 1984: 514–24).
35
Early contact in April 1937 reported by Aranha (1937).
36
During the communist uprising of November 1935, Salgado had already offered his
counterrevolutionary services by promising the president “that one hundred thousand
Green Shirts stood at the disposal of the federal government to preserve order” (Levine
1970: 97).
250 Conservative–Fascist Relations

Aware of their limited clout, Brazil’s fascists accepted this

Machiavellian deal and agreed to support Vargas’ dictatorial takeover.
For this purpose, Salgado sought to deter potential opponents shortly
before the long-planned coup by having uniformed Integralists parade
through downtown Rio to the presidential palace, where Vargas greeted
the marching fascists. Interestingly, however, while Salgado claimed to
have mobilized 50,000 supporters, Vargas (1995: 79) in his diary put the
number at a mere 20,000 and the police estimated 17,000 – not very
impressive for the large capital of a huge country (Levine 1970: 95, 159;
Carvalho 1999: 69; Klein 2004: 65–66). Thus, while Vargas made use of
fascist support, he was fully aware of the effective constellation of power,
which clearly favored him over Salgado.
To prepare the imposition of authoritarianism, Vargas and his leading
civilian and military aides consulted with Salgado on some important
issues (Salgado 1938, 1939; Vargas 1995: 78). For instance, Campos
showed the draft of the new corporatist constitution to the fascist leader
(Klein 2004: 63–64; Silva 2007: 218, 227–28) – whereas the civilian
members of Vargas’s government saw only the finished document, on
the day before the self-coup (Vargas 1995: 82)! In these ways, Vargas and
his aides suggested that Integralismo would form the political base of the
coming authoritarian regime (Hilton 1972: 21–22). Specifically, the presi-
dent promised the Integralist chieftain the education ministry, which
would have allowed for the indoctrination of Brazil’s youth, an attractive
prospect for the fascists’ ideological project (see Cavalari 1999: 41–74,
99–102, 155–56). These contacts convinced Salgado that he and his
followers would play a major role in the autocracy and could sooner or
later transform it into a fascist dictatorship.
But the scheming Mussolini admirer was in for a rude awakening.
Instead of basing his regime on bottom-up support from the Integralists,
Vargas exercised power from the top down, based on solid military
backing. The dictator did not use the fascists as his official regime party,
as they had hoped; instead, he prohibited all parties, including the
Integralists.37 Thus, as soon as Vargas sat firmly in the saddle, he created
a hierarchical, elitist, and exclusionary autocracy that had no room for
Integralismo (Levine 1970: 158–61). Stunned and stung by this ostenta-
tious marginalization, the fascist leader refused to accept his consolation

37
Initially, Salgado acquiesced in his party’s dissolution and accepted the ministerial offer,
but then backtracked due to internal resistance inside Integralismo, it seems (Vargas
1995, vol. 2: 85, 88–90, 106, 109, 113–14).
 Conservative Usage of Fascist Movements 251

prize, the education ministry. In a long letter to Vargas (Salgado 1938), as

in his later deposition before the political police (Salgado 1939), the
rebuffed ally reminded the dictator of his services as well as of Vargas’
promises, and bitterly complained about this betrayal, but to no avail (see
also Silva 2007: 215, 225). Frustrated at being outmaneuvered so blithely,
the radical wing of the Integralist movement tried to take power through
armed uprisings in early 1938, but the military easily squashed its attack
on the presidential palace (McCann 1969: 21, 25–26; Levine 1970:
163–65; Klein 2004: 71–72; Fausto 2006: 136–37). The government then
suppressed the fascists with a host of sanctions and soon forced Salgado
into exile to Portugal.
The Brazilian case thus shows how a savvy conservative leader used a
significant fascist movement for his own purposes, namely the installation
of an authoritarian regime. The Integralists deterred any opposition to
Vargas’ self-coup and helped legitimate this power grab with their own
anti-communist propaganda; yet their ideological stridency also made the
aspiring dictator appear moderate and reasonable, and thus acceptable to
broad population sectors (Klein 2004: 66). Yet, while benefiting from
these fascist contributions, Vargas always remained in control, based on
his skillful political alliances and firm military support. The Integralists
lacked the mobilizational and paramilitary strength to extract the political
reward they had expected, namely major influence in the new autocracy.
Rather than getting to the doorstep of power, Brazil’s fascists had the
door slammed in their face. And through his own anti-communism and
nationalism, Vargas took the wind out of the radical right’s sails and
foreclosed a move to fascism.
Yet while Vargas dismantled Brazil’s main fascist movement after
installing his authoritarian regime, he and several top aides also admired
Mussolini and Hitler and took inspiration from their dictatorships in
imposing an unchallengeable autocracy38 and fortifying it with corporat-
ist structures (see recently Pinto 2019a: 127–34; Pinto 2019b: 68–83).
The 1937 constitution literally copied core provisions of Italy’s Carta del
Lavoro to institute a state-corporatist system of union and business
organization designed to forestall class struggle (Campos 1937: 42–43;

38
This obvious inspiration aroused grave concern in the US government, which feared that
Vargas had acted under direct Italian and German influence and would ally with Europe’s
fascist great powers (Evening Star 1937; Levine 1980: 69–70). Brazil’s ambassador
undertook enormous efforts to counteract these fears, which lingered for years
(Evening Star 1940). But there is no evidence of any European influence on Vargas.
252 Conservative–Fascist Relations

Moraes 1978: 243–47). The 1939 law regulating this constitutional

mandate then imposed an obligatory union tax along Italian lines. The
“Consolidation of Labor Laws” of 1943, which governed Brazil’s indus-
trial relations for decades to come, also had strong fascist inspirations
(Moraes 1978: 253, 269, 282–83; see also Gentile 2014: 87–88, 91–100).
Remarkably, the influence of Mussolini’s model persisted even at a time
when Brazil, allied with the United States, was preparing to join WWII
against fascism in Italy!
But while borrowing from European fascism, Vargas instituted nation-
alist authoritarianism – a non-ideological dictatorship fomenting state-led
industrialization and guaranteeing sociopolitical stability (Fausto 2006:
71, 91–92). This de-mobilizational regime diverged fundamentally from
fascist totalitarianism, as “theorists” of this Estado Novo (new state)
highlighted,39 and scholarly analyses confirm (Levine 1970: 172–75;
Trindade 2001: 483). Typically, an interpreter of the new constitution
approvingly quoted Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s dictum, “For now, the
people must not be concerned with politics. It’s enough that they take
care of the fields and the businesses” (Barata 1938: 143). As its guiding
spirit, Vargas’ regime emphasized cooperation and harmony, polar
opposites of the aggressive energy and destructive impulses cultivated by
fascism.
Vargas deviated from Mussolini’s and Hitler’s totalitarian models by
not creating a government-controlled mass movement or a regime party
(Levine 1970: 151, 172; D’Araujo 2000: 13). One probable reason is that
Salgado (1938: 7) had advocated such a “unity party,” which remaining
Integralists could infiltrate and eventually use for a fascist challenge to
Vargas’ authoritarian regime from the inside. To avoid a similar risk, the
youth organization that Brazil copied from the Portuguese copy of an
Italian innovation (D’Araujo 2000: 35–36) remained limited in size; upon
Vargas’ insistence, it refrained from adopting a paramilitary orientation,
which a more fascist-leaning minister advocated (Levine 1970: 166).
Thus, Brazil’s president borrowed less from fascism than many
European dictators did, who were eager to fortify their authoritarian
regimes against right-wing or left-wing extremists (see Chapter 7). By
contrast, the South American dictator no longer faced any realistic threat

39
Barata (1938: 37, 50, 66, 163); Vieira (1981: 41–43, 84–85); Fausto (2001: 9–11,
47–48); see also Vargas’ brief rejection of totalitarianism cited in Silva (1980: 102).
Even Brazil’s most prominent communist, Luiz Carlos Prestes, diverged from his party’s
anti-fascist line by emphasizing that Vargas’ regime was not fascist (Prestes 1991: 93–96).
 Conservative Usage of Fascist Movements 253

from the revolutionary left or any pressure from an independent fascist

movement; therefore, he could rely on unadulterated, exclusionary
authoritarianism to guarantee stability.
In sum, Vargas skillfully used support from Integralismo to overthrow
the liberal regime enshrined in the 1934 constitution and impose a hier-
archical, de-mobilizational autocracy. As soon as he had established his
dictatorship, he denied the fascists any significant influence and quickly
suppressed them. Given their limited strength, Salgado and his followers
were unable to fight back effectively. While the widespread fear of com-
munism that the availability heuristic kept virulent after the left-wing
uprising of 1935 had allowed fascism to grow to a considerable size in
Brazil, this advance was clearly insufficient to permit an independent bid
for power. Therefore, Vargas managed to manipulate the Integralists by
tempting them with suggestions of power sharing, but reneged once the
fascists had assisted him with his self-coup. As in Spain, a conservative
leader imposed an authoritarian regime with support from a fascist
movement – and then quickly subjugated his extreme-right allies.

Using Fascism to Consolidate and Harden Authoritarianism:

Salazar in Portugal
While in Spain and Brazil, conservative elite politicians used the backing
of fascist movements to erect new dictatorships, in Portugal a reactionary
grouping inside an unstable, faction-ridden military regime took advan-
tage of extreme right-wingers to marginalize an initially powerful more
liberal current and found a hierarchical, exclusionary, and very
durable autocracy.
Too ambitious a political experiment for a particularly backward
country (Wheeler 1978: 3, 62–63, 155–58, 253–55; Birmingham 2003:
141–42, 152–53), the Portuguese republic inaugurated in 1910 had never
sunk firm roots. Violently interrupted by an insurrection led by Major
Sidónio Pais in late 1917, who instituted Europe’s first dictatorship of the
twentieth century, it was precariously restored after Pais’s assassination in
late 1918 and a brief civil war in early 1919. From 1921 onward, coup
plots and attempted rebellions, inspired in part by Mussolini’s March on
Rome and Primo de Rivera’s coup in neighboring Spain (Wheeler 1978:
188, 209, 212; Albanese 2016: xii, 140–54), frequently agitated political
life. With the autocratic precedents of Italy and Spain in mind (Albanese
2016: 162, 172–73, 177), right-wing military and political groupings
colluded in mid-1926 and unseated a party that had used widespread
254 Conservative–Fascist Relations

clientelism and manipulation to perpetuate its stranglehold on the gov-

ernment (Wheeler 1978: 166–71, 226–27, 244, 256).
But the new dictatorship was highly unstable as well and suffered
constant challenges, including protests, rebellions, and coup plots.40
After all, this precarious regime faced considerable opposition from
defenders of the liberal republic; and it rested on various groupings that
embraced divergent political projects (Salazar 1948: 60–65; Pinto 1994:
76–92; Mesquita 2007: 55–66; Rosas 2013: 75–76). One important
current combined conservatism and moderate liberalism, advocated a
competitive-authoritarian regime, and foresaw a handover of power to
electoral politicians sooner or later. Another, reactionary current steeped
in Catholic corporatism sought a permanent dictatorship that would keep
the electoral arena closed, exclude the citizenry from all political decision-
making, and institute an elitist, hierarchical autocracy. Moreover,
extreme-right currents fearful of Bolshevism (Pinto 1994: 83, 96, 102,
106, 121, 148) and inspired by Italian fascism (Pinto 1994: 48–51,
54–56, 79, 94, 181) had many adherents among lower ranks in the
military (Madureira 2000: 153).
The intermediate, reactionary wing was headed by a young civilian,
university professor António de Oliveira Salazar. Leader of an archcon-
servative Catholic grouping, this public finance specialist (!) became
indispensable to the stumbling military regime, which soon faced a huge
budget crisis. Appointed as finance minister in 1928, Salazar miraculously
balanced public accounts – and leveraged the urgent need for expenditure
discipline to gain veto power over the rest of the government (Madureira
2000: 77–78, 81, 85; Rosas 2013: 88–94). In fact, by concentrating ever
more influence, the taciturn technocrat soon advanced to the premiership.
From this vantage point, Salazar systematically pursued a comprehen-
sive, ambitious political project, namely to institutionalize the precarious
authoritarian regime and turn it into a solid hierarchical autocracy
(Salazar 1948: 36–37, 60, 65, 95, 133, 377–86). The main concern
behind his proposed constitution was the guarantee of sociopolitical
order (Salazar 1948: 51–52, 79–91, 133, 335–36),41 which he saw jeop-
ardized by the revolutionary impulses of communism, as promoted by the

40
Wheeler (1978: 235–47); Pinto (1995: 142, 147, 152–53); Madureira (2000: 9, 18–21,
25–26, 39–43, 47–48, 52–53, 100–5, 140–41); Rosas (2013: 28, 34, 53, 56–57, 64, 67,
70–73, 77–81).
41
The enormous instability and sociopolitical turmoil of the first republic had given rise to a
generalized quest for “order” that went beyond conservative sectors (Wheeler
1978: 224).
 Conservative Usage of Fascist Movements 255

Soviet Union (Rosas 2013: 39, 47, 87, 124). Thus, although Portugal
faced only a weak radical-left threat, this Catholic conservative perceived
a significant risk that he sought to combat by consolidating and
hardening the unstable dictatorship.42 Accordingly, when proposing his
authoritarian constitution in 1932, Salazar highlighted the Russian
Revolution, which (as mentioned already in Chapter 5) “would bring
the gravest future complications, affecting [contagiando] nearby countries
and extending the threat to all races of the world.” Because of
“Communists, the maximalist enemies of all organized society . . . dis-
order turns profound” (Relatório 1932: 9–11, folhas 52–54), Portugal’s
dictator warned.
To avert this revolutionary danger and ensure stability, Salazar’s con-
stitution foresaw a corporatist system of labor and business representa-
tion designed to forestall class struggle. Moreover, the government and
the state would greatly gain in strength, whereas parliament would serve
primarily for acclamation and command little effective clout; it would
provide some space for establishment politicians with liberal leanings to
allow for monitoring their political activities (Relatório 1932: 19–26,
folhas 62–71). In general, however, the ascendant dictator sought to limit
political debate, suspend electoral competition, and entrust all important
government tasks to technical experts (Madureira 2000: 90–91; Rosas
2013: 32–37, 107, 123, 129). Thus, he wanted to entrench a hierarchical
and de-mobilizational, strictly authoritarian regime – a viable project in a
particularly underdeveloped country (Gallagher 1990: 158–61,
166–68).43
To achieve predominance inside the wobbly dictatorship and dislodge
the advocates of competitive authoritarianism from their initial command
over the leading positions, especially in the military, the crafty Salazar
temporarily aligned with far- and extreme-right groupings (Madureira
2000: 90, 156–58; Rosas 2013: 96–97, 100, 106, 110–12, 117, 123–24).
Those hardcore reactionaries in turn, inspired strongly by Italian fascism
(Pinto 1994: 54–56, 79, 94; Madureira 2010: 134), sought greater clout
to push the head of government away from his stodgy conservatism

42
Some extreme-left agitation, and the corresponding threat perceptions, persisted into the
1930s (Madureira 2010: 248–55, 259–60, 298–308, 314).
43
Interestingly, Salazar’s draft constitution, which includes the dictator’s handwritten
notes, makes no specific reference to Italian fascism. Instead, while mentioning in general
terms that foreign suggestions were considered, it emphasizes that “the structure of the
[New] State . . . needs to be adapted intimately to national possibilities” (Relatório 1932:
15–16, folhas 58–59).
256 Conservative–Fascist Relations

(Madureira 2000: 156, 161–64; Madureira 2010: 137–42, 169–71,

265–66). They therefore unified and formed a fascist organization in the
early 1930s, the National Syndicalist Movement. Leader Francisco Rolão
Preto, an ardent Mussolini admirer (Pinto 1994: 48–51), intended to
abolish all remnants of political liberalism, copy the corporatist frame-
work of Italian fascism, and institute mass-mobilizational totalitarianism.
Hitler’s dramatic advance and triumph in Germany boosted Preto’s hopes
that his movement could soon win hegemony in and over Portugal’s
dictatorship (Pinto 1994: 133–35, 246; Madureira 2010: 37–38, 133;
Rosas 2013: 134, 137). Typically, thus, elitist conservatives and dynamic
fascists entered into tactical collaboration, but pursued quite different
end goals.
As was common in underdeveloped countries during the interwar
years, the conservative advocates of authoritarianism had significantly
greater clout than Preto’s fascist upstarts. Moreover, Salazar skillfully
played off the two opposing wings among the dictatorship’s supporters,
pitting the moderate adherents of competitive authoritarianism against
the fascist radicals (see, e.g., Madureira 2010: 139–49). By mediating
between these opposing poles, the cunning autocrat boosted his own
predominance. In particular, he gradually removed moderate officers
from military command posts and established civilian control over the
armed forces (Rosas 2013: 211–21; see also Pinto 1994: 284, 287–88).
With prudent determination, he thus foreclosed the coup risk, a crucial
step in solidifying the authoritarian regime.
Simultaneously, Salazar kept the National Syndicalists under control,
who tried hard to exert autonomous pressure and push the regime toward
fascism.44 To thwart this looming threat, the dictator moved to coopt and
decapitate Preto’s organization (Pinto 1994: 240, 244–45; see also 91).
He therefore offered the “Blue Shirts” official recognition – if they
replaced their leaders.45 Of course, because charisma was essential for
totalitarian dynamism, a fascist movement without its original leader
would be as weak and vulnerable as the Bible’s Samson without his long
hair. But the clout that Salazar had already accumulated made a direct
confrontation dangerous for Preto’s movement.

44
In 1929, Salazar had already rejected the proposals of a cabinet colleague who had been
ambassador in Rome that Portugal adopt fascist innovations such as Mussolini’s Carta
del Lavoro and a people’s militia (Kuin 1990: 104–5).
45
Adinolfi and Pinto (2014: 160). Salazar had used the same tactic against an earlier
radical-right organization out of which the National Syndicalists emerged (Madureira
2000: 164–65).
 Conservative Usage of Fascist Movements 257

Facing two unattractive options, the National Syndicalists divided –

which guaranteed their defeat. More and more fascists abandoned their
leader, pledged loyalty to the stodgy dictator, and found refuge especially
in the new corporatist institutions (Pinto 1994: 249–51, 298–99;
Madureira 2010: 266–72). The recalcitrant wing sought to maintain its
autonomy but faced growing harassment and, soon, repression, which
made its numbers dwindle (Pinto 1994: 237–39, 255–65; Rosas 2013:
134, 139–42). In fact, Salazar outlawed National Syndicalism in
1934 and drove Preto into exile. When the remaining Blue Shirts
responded with an uprising in 1935, the authoritarian ruler suppressed
fascism definitively (Pinto 1994: 279–84; Payne 1995: 314–16), though
less brutally and “far more smoothly than [it happened] in . . . Spain,
Romania, [and] Brazil” (Gallagher 1990: 163).
Thus, by first using and then emasculating Portugal’s main fascist
movement, Salazar managed to turn an unstable, precarious military
dictatorship into a well-entrenched, durable authoritarian regime. In this
way, he also sought to avoid the brittleness that had made Miguel
Primo de Rivera’s autocracy in neighboring Spain crumble recently
(Adinolfi 2007: 53–55). To guarantee institutional solidity, Salazar insti-
tuted state-corporatist structures of interest representation (Salazar 1948:
86–89, 283, 340–44; Pinto 1995: 181–87; Madureira 2010: 198,
222–30), allied firmly with established elites, especially the Catholic
hierarchy (Carvalho 2013), and resolutely controlled and excluded the
plebeian masses.
Some of Salazar’s steps toward institutionalization, such as the import
of corporatist provisions from Italy’s Carta del Lavoro, had strong fascist
roots.46 Moreover, Lisbon sent a number of study missions to Italy and
received advice from Mussolini emissaries (see, e.g., Castro 1934c; Lima
1935; in general, see Pinto 1995: 165, 174–75, 199, 207). Yet despite
these contacts and the partial borrowing, Salazar explicitly highlighted his
distance from fascism.47 Above all, the dictator, who cultivated the image
of a stern disciplinarian rather than a demagogic rabble rouser, rejected
the quasi-religious nature of the Duce’s charismatic leadership cult, the
violent tactics of Mussolini’s movement, and the totalitarianism of the

46
Lucena (1976: 209–22) highlights the copying from fascist Italy, yet Kay (1970: 51–54,
59–63) and Martinho (2007: 65) see fewer similarities to the Italian model. Interestingly,
even Portugal’s Socialist Party embraced corporatism (Madureira 2010: 150, 153).
47
Mussolini’s emissaries criticized Salazar’s distance from fascism (Kuin 1990: 106–7, 111).
258 Conservative–Fascist Relations

regime in Rome.48 As a deliberate alternative (Santos 2019), Salazar

consolidated hierarchical, elitist authoritarianism (Pinto 1995: 204–7;
see also 76–79, 171–75, 191–92; Meneses 2009: 162–71).
But despite his strong reservations, the opportunistic dictator soon
made greater concessions to fascism to avert a perceived left-wing chal-
lenge. In the mid-1930s, threats emerged in neighboring Spain, where the
Second Republic slid toward radicalism.49 After the Popular Front victory
in early 1936, the “great fear” of communism gripping Spanish conserva-
tives (Ranzato 2014) affected the Portuguese autocrat as well and instilled
dread in the government and its supporters (if not “hysteria”: Rosas
2013: 83; see also 14, 87, 172–73, 213–14, 330; and Payne 2006: 269).
In fact, Spain’s radicalization had spillover effects by stimulating leftist
agitation in Portugal (Rodrigues 1996: 43, 64–69). Loss aversion there-
fore induced Salazar to fortify his authoritarian regime with some
weapons offered by the fascist arsenal (Kuin 1993b: 566; Bernecker
2002: 460–61; Rosas 2013: 151).
Therefore, Salazar now collaborated more closely with advocates of
the Italian model, such as Mussolini admirer António Ferro, whose
propaganda secretariat won greater attributions, for instance in censor-
ship.50 Moreover, Salazar gave some leeway to former National
Syndicalists who had joined his regime in 1933/34 (Rodrigues 1996: 15,
36–46). Initially, he had prevented these opportunistic adherents from
pursuing their fascist ideology by transforming regime institutions such as
corporatism into closer copies of the Italian original. But confronted with
left-wing radicalization across the border, the autocrat became more
receptive to their proposals (Rodrigues 1996: 46–57, 199–200). Besides
creating a government-controlled youth organization along fascist lines,
Salazar even allowed the formation of paramilitary shock troops, the
Portuguese Legion, which could defend against extremist spillover from
Spain.51 Moreover, he sought to tighten his control over the population

48
Salazar (1948: 333–34, 336–37, 342); Salazar (1977: 67–70); interview with Salazar in
Ferro (1939: 176–81, 250–51); see also Mesquita (2007: 100–1, 121); Rosas (2013:
174–75); Santos (2019: 54–55).
49
Gallagher (1990: 165). During the preceding years, Salazar had closely followed Spain’s
shifting political developments (Madureira 2010: 205–6, 276–77).
50
While the Salazar regime borrowed mainly from fascist Italy, Germany was the main
source of inspiration for this innovation (Adinolfi 2012: 612–13, 616; see also Madureira
2010: 233).
51
See especially Rodrigues (1996); see also Kuin (1993b); Pinto (1994: 279–83); Meneses
(2009: 137–45). Salazar also used this militia’s formation to put pressure on the armed
forces and thus enhance his control over the military (Rodrigues 1996: 57–62, 198).
 Conservative Usage of Fascist Movements 259

by instituting a leisure time organization along the lines of Mussolini’s

Italy and Nazi Germany (Rosas 2013: 330, 339–41). In all these ways,
Portugal’s authoritarian ruler temporarily replicated fascist innovations
to secure and fortify his own predominance (Pinto 1995: 181–83,
195–99, 207).
But these opportunistic imports played a much less dynamic and com-
prehensive role in Salazar’s conservative autocracy than in Mussolini’s
energetic dictatorship, not to speak of Nazi totalitarianism (Gallagher
1990: 173). Created from the top down by the government (Rodrigues
1996: 33, 49) and grafted onto an exclusionary hierarchical regime, the
youth movement and the militia developed only a limited range of activities
and had difficulty eliciting fervent participation. The reclusive Salazar, who
clearly lacked Mussolini’s and Hitler’s mass appeal (Ferro 1939: 185–86),
had little mobilizational capacity. In fact, the dictator strenuously and
successfully resisted right-wingers’ efforts to make the militia a dynamic
fighting force along true fascist lines (Rodrigues 1996: 16, 113–23).
Instead, he insisted on firm control by his conservative government
(Rodrigues 1996: 73, 103, 106, 200–). Consequently, while replicating
fascist innovations in their formal organizational structure, the youth
movement and militia never gained the energetic force and political clout
of the original models (Kuin 1993b: 555–73; Rodrigues 1996: 197–98).
Their comparatively limited membership went through the motions, but
lacked the ideological commitment or charismatic calling motivating many
Italian fascists and German Nazis to “heroic” self-sacrifice.
Moreover, as soon as the radical-left danger passed with Franco’s
victory in the Spanish Civil War, Salazar began to starve these fascist
imports of political attention and resources. And once the anti-communist
fervor elicited by Hitler’s 1941 attack on the Soviet Union died down, the
Portuguese government actively wound down these mobilizational organ-
izations, which archconservative Salazar with his insistence on hierarch-
ical order had always distrusted (Kuin 1993b: 555–73; Rodrigues 1996:
103, 157–58, 198). Their inherent lack of bottom-up energy, resulting
from their top-down creation, soon made these alien transplants wither
away. This limited rise and quick decline, evident in the Portuguese
Legion’s membership (Rodrigues 1996: 89, 93–94, 158–59), shows that
the dictator was far from turning fascist. Instead, he had borrowed from
the fascist toolkit only to shield his thoroughly authoritarian regime
against a passing threat. When the scary conjuncture was over, Salazar’s
opportunistic nods toward fascism ended as well. Always firmly in the
saddle, he had not risked losing control to totalitarian dynamism.
260 Conservative–Fascist Relations

In sum, Portugal’s skillful autocrat used a limited fascist movement to

help him defeat more liberal groupings of politicians and generals. By
pitting divergent right-wing sectors against each other, Salazar managed
to subordinate them all, integrate them into his conservative authoritarian
regime, and thus overcome longstanding factionalism. In this way, the
ascendant dictator turned an unstable military regime into an exceedingly
durable autocracy (Rosas 2013: 74–156; see also Martinho 2012:
102–5). Then, when facing Spanish radicalism in the mid-1930s, Salazar
again used support from fascist-leaning forces and imported several com-
ponents of Mussolini’s and Hitler’s models. But now as well, he firmly
controlled the reins and hollowed out these foreign elements once the
scary conjuncture passed. Thus, the stolid archconservative did not let
fascist upstarts push him toward mobilizational, totalitarian fascism
(Pinto 1994: 308–10), but built and maintained a typically authoritarian,
elitist and non-participatory regime.

     

While conservative leaders in Spain, Brazil, and Portugal used fascist
movements to impose or consolidate authoritarian regimes, in other
countries, ascendant fascism fueled the autocratic reverse wave in more
paradoxical ways, namely by inducing conservative sectors to overthrow
liberalism and democracy to prevent a fascist takeover. Where surging
fascist movements seemed on the verge of seizing power, establishment
sectors forcefully blocked this scary prospect through preemptive self-
coups. Thus, fascism itself, whose rise was fueled by the perceived threat
of communism, turned into a threat that conservative elites forestalled by
imposing hierarchical, exclusionary rule. These panicky moves were
informed by the deterrent effect of Hitler’s cunning way of winning power
through electoral and formally democratic means, and then using his
triumph to escape from conservative containment efforts and brutally
claim total predominance. After this worrisome precedent, established
elites across the globe were determined to stop fascist movements’
advance in time, even with dictatorial and repressive means. Thus,
Hitler’s feat caused shockwaves that helped prevent its repetition (Linz
1976: 101–2). Like communism, fascism proved so dangerous and fear-
some to establishment sectors that it exerted its own deterrent effects.
In these tragic cases, liberal democracy fell neither to a revolutionary
challenge from the radical left nor a counterrevolutionary assault from
the radical right, but to a conservative effort to keep both extremes out of
 Authoritarian Coups to Preempt Fascist Takeovers 261

power and guarantee sociopolitical stability through anti-mobilizational,

depoliticizing authoritarianism. Like communism, fascism with its ener-
getic quest for ideologically driven totalitarianism posed such a virulent
threat that it prompted a massive reaction and led its desperate opponents
to sacrifice democracy in several countries.
Such conservative moves to block fascist takeovers through authori-
tarian palace coups occurred in a mini-wave soon after Hitler’s
Machtergreifung in Austria in 1933/34, Estonia and Latvia in 1934, and
a bit later in Romania in early 1938.52 In the late 1930s, Hungary’s
competitive-authoritarian regime hardened as well in response to the
rising Arrow Cross movement, turning toward closed autocracy (see
next section). In all these cases, the Nazi specter served as a crucial
warning for conservative elites, who took what they regarded as the last
chance for blocking its replication. In fact, Hitler’s striking success in
overpowering Germany’s establishment sectors induced their counter-
parts in other countries to overrate the danger of fascism. Due to the
availability and representativeness heuristics, establishment forces over-
estimated the risk that right-wing extremists could replicate Hitler’s feat
and overwhelm them as well. And in Estonia, they saw radical rightists as
more fascist – and therefore dangerous – than they may actually have
been. To avoid subjugation by these totalitarian hordes, they cracked
down hard, preventatively overthrew democracy, and secured stability
through authoritarian rule.
Thus, Hitler’s dramatic example activated cognitive heuristics that,
while encouraging fascists to make bids for power, prompted conserva-
tives to block such takeovers with all means. Like Lenin’s success in
Russia, Hitler’s success in Germany set in motion efforts at diffusion as
well as counter-diffusion. And like the earlier radical-left precedent, this
radical-right precedent stimulated counter-diffusion that proved much
stronger and more successful than diffusion.

The Struggles of Baltic Conservatives with Fascist Movements

Due to the cognitive shortcuts highlighted in this book, an over-
estimation, if not partial mis-perception of a fascist challenge occurred
in Estonia and Latvia, dooming liberal democracy shortly after the Nazi
Machtergreifung. Facing an upsurge of extreme-right mobilization,

52
In Bulgaria, fascist mobilization also helped provoke the imposition of a royal dictator-
ship in 1934/35 (Crampton 2005: 158–62; see also Groueff 1987: 226–29).
262 Conservative–Fascist Relations

worried mainstream politicians led by the new countries’ “founding

fathers” spearheaded preemptive coups and imposed authoritarian
regimes. While both countries had for years experienced political-
institutional problems and were hit hard by the Great Depression, it
was the specter of a fascist takeover made salient by Hitler’s triumph that
provoked a conservative backlash and prompted dictatorial imposition,
especially in Estonia, and then via quick and direct imitation in Latvia
as well.
In Estonia, an ultra-parliamentary democracy had long suffered from
party fragmentation and frequent governmental instability (Metcalf 1998:
336–37, 342, 346; Varrak 2000: 117; Kasekamp and Toomla 2012: 39).
This weak liberal system gradually lost support in the 1920s and then
seemed incapable of coping with the Great Depression. A communist coup
attempt backed by the USSR in 1924 (Konstantin Päts Fund 1974: 58–59)
had revealed democracy’s vulnerability, prompted a shift toward the right,
and spurred demands to strengthen executive power (Vardys 1978: 72–73;
Kasekamp 2000: 33, 104). During the economic crisis of the early 1930s,
right-wing sectors pressed ever harder for constitutional reform to institute
a powerful presidency that could effectively combat the country’s prob-
lems. Their underlying goal was to push Estonia in an illiberal, even non-
democratic direction, which Baltic cousin Lithuania had already charted
through an authoritarian coup in 1926.
The driving force behind this transformation project was a veterans’
movement, the Union of Participants in the Estonian War of
Independence. After starting in the 1920s with a conservative orientation,
this Vaps Movement turned more extreme in the early 1930s and moved
toward fascism. This radicalization was inspired by the emergence of
fascist movements across Europe, the dramatic advance of the German
Nazis (Kasekamp 2000: 69–70; Valge 2011: 806, 808), and the strength
and political virulence of the extremist Lapua Movement in Finland
(Raun 1987: 15; Von Rauch 1995: 148–49; Kasekamp 2000: 1–2, 38,
71–72), a country with linguistic and cultural similarities and longstand-
ing political connections with Estonia.53 As young men flocked into the
veterans’ movement, it turned ever more strident in its anti-liberalism,
nationalism, and anti-communism, proposing bills to combat Marxism

53
Raun 1987; De Meur and Berg-Schlosser 1996: 455, 462. Finnish volunteer contingents
had joined Estonians in their independence war against Russian Communists (Smith
1958: 128–30; Kasekamp 2000: 72), fighting “for Estonian liberty from the Bolshevik
reign of terror” (report cited in Kirby 1975: 246).
 Authoritarian Coups to Preempt Fascist Takeovers 263

and ban the Socialist Party (Kasekamp 2000: 53, 68). Moreover, it
developed the energetic dynamism that sets fascism apart from conserva-
tism (Parming 1975: 55; Siaroff 1999: 114–15). While not holding the top
position, the Vaps movement’s most active leader, young and charismatic
Artur Sirk, sought to win predominance and pushed for embracing fas-
cism. For this purpose, Sirk employed a demagogic discourse, modern
propaganda techniques, and paramilitary mobilization.
The fascist metamorphosis of the veterans’ movement aroused grave
concern among Estonia’s mainstream parties. The Socialists forcefully
attacked the hatching dragon and depicted Sirk and his disciples as
followers and protégés of Adolf Hitler.54 Given the recent experiences
of Finland’s Lapua movement (see Chapter 9) and the Nazi power grab,
centrist and conservative politicians also came to see the radicalizing
veterans as fascist challengers (Bermeo 2003: 34; Kasekamp 2017b).
Due to the heuristics of availability and representativeness, they overrated
the cross-national parallels and perceived the Vaps movement as full-
scale, dangerous fascists. In their perception, these right-wingers “showed
a good deal of totalitarian ideology and practice” (Konstantin Päts Fund
1974: 60).55
This fear-inspiring perception, a typical product of bounded rationality,
was exaggerated, however. While the Vaps movement shared a number of
ideological tenets and political tactics with fascism, it also differed in
important ways, especially in organizational structure and political-
institutional goals. The energetic Sirk was turning into the main leader,
but was still far from total predominance; thus, the Vaps movement did not
revolve around the charismatic Führer principle (Kasekamp 2000: 83–84),
as true fascist movements did. Also, the Estonian right-wingers did not
advocate democracy’s replacement by dictatorship, not to speak of totali-
tarianism. Although it is impossible to know their true and ultimate goals,
especially if they had won power, their political demands and proposals
diverged starkly from the German Nazis, for instance. Therefore, the Vaps
movement was not fully fascist,56 although it was moving in that direction.

54
Kasekamp (2000: 41, 68); Valge (2011: 806–8). In fact, however, the Vaps movement
had only limited contacts with the Nazis and received no German funding (Valge 2011:
794, 803, 805).
55
Because President Konstantin Päts perished in detention after the Soviet takeover in 1940,
he did not leave behind memoirs. But this commemorative publication by his former
fraternity brothers probably captures his broader thinking.
56
For a careful and convincing assessment, see Kasekamp (1993); also Kasekamp (2000:
65–73, 82–88); Varrak (2000: 120, 123, 127). Employing a looser, ideology-centered
264 Conservative–Fascist Relations

In the early 1930s, despite occasional violence, the Veterans’ League

was taking a democratic and electoral route to advance its causes, espe-
cially the strengthening of political authority. For this purpose, it force-
fully demanded a constitutional reform to create a powerful presidency.
Because the mainstream parties did not want or manage to enact this
change and thus resolve the brewing political crisis (Parming 1975:
45–48, 65), the veterans’ movement forced a plebiscite in 1933, which it
won with an overwhelming 73 percent (Kasekamp 2000: 47–48). Due to
this groundswell of support, confirmed in municipal elections in January
1934, the upcoming presidential and legislative contests of April
1934 were likely to hand victory to this extreme-right force.57
To prevent what the mainstream parties saw and depicted as an imminent
fascist takeover, acting President Konstantin Päts, a traditional conservative,58
spearheaded a preemptive palace coup in March 1934, imposed a fairly soft
authoritarian regime, and outlawed the veterans’ movement (Konstantin Päts
Fund 1974: 60–61, 97; Lieven 1993: 69; Kasekamp 2000: 100–6). As long-
standing leader of the farmers’ party, one of Estonia’s strongest, and as a
father of national independence in 1918, Päts counted on widespread backing.
In fact, the Socialist Party, which was especially convinced of the Vaps
movement’s fascist nature, supported this anti-democratic rescue effort
(Kasekamp 2000: 102–3). It soon paid the political price for this rash inference
and possible misperception when President Päts outlawed all parties and clung
to power long after definitively suppressing the radical-right challenge
(Kasekamp 2000: 122–30; Pajur 2001: 176–82, 185–86). In fact, he took
advantage of a desperate coup attempt that remnants of the veterans’ move-
ment prepared in late 1935 to crack down hard;59 thereafter, he consolidated
power through another constitutional reform in 1937 (Metcalf 1998: 339,
342, 344–47; Pajur 2001: 199–201).60

concept of fascism, Kasekamp (2015: 160–62, 168) recently classified the Vaps move-
ment as fascist, however.
57
Von Rauch (1995: 150); Kasekamp (2000: 50, 56, 61–63, 101); Pajur (2001: 166, 169);
Plakans (2011: 327). Kasekamp (2017b) argued, however, that the presidential election
would probably have gone into a second round, which an anti-Vaps alliance was likely to
win – but not with candidate Päts, who therefore had a strong self-interest to block the
election with his self-coup.
58
As Taagepera (1974: 408) highlights, “Päts . . . always remained critical of [Mussolini’s]
Italy” and “had negative attitudes toward Hitler.”
59
Pajur (2001: 170–71) suspects that this alleged Vaps coup was a
governmental fabrication.
60
In Taagepera’s (1974: 410–11) interpretation, however, the 1937 constitution could have
allowed for gradually returning to democracy.
 Authoritarian Coups to Preempt Fascist Takeovers 265

In sum, the self-coup destroyed democracy to prevent the likely elect-

oral victory of an extreme-right force that was moving toward fascism.
The salient experiences of the Finnish Lapua movement and the German
Nazis, however, led mainstream parties to see the veterans as more fascist
than they actually were and thus to overestimate the threat. Päts’ pre-
emptive coup was probably an overreaction, driven by a mixture of
genuine misperception and self-interested exaggeration. Of course, it is
impossible to determine whether democracy’s overthrow allowed Estonia
to avoid a much worse fate, namely fascist totalitarianism (see, e.g.,
Kasekamp 2000: 106). What is clear, however, is that a radical-right
challenge prompted a conservative authoritarian reaction; the partial
diffusion of fascism provoked forceful counter-diffusion, which – typic-
ally – carried the day.
Päts’s success in averting an apparent fascist threat triggered strikingly
isomorphic imitation only two months later in neighboring Latvia.61 That
country also had a parliament-centric democracy with all its troubles, and
in the early 1930s suffered from grave economic problems and political
tensions as well. In this similar setting, the agrarian party led by the
Estonian leader’s virtual Doppelgänger, Kārlis Ulmanis, Latvia’s father
of national independence, sought to preempt any effort by domestic right-
wingers to imitate the Estonian veterans’ push for a strong presidency,
which had allowed those Estonian extremists to garner such strong polit-
ical support. To forestall such a threat in Latvia, Ulmanis’s party spear-
headed its own power-concentrating project of constitutional reform. But
party fragmentation in parliament blocked this attempt to avoid Estonia’s
troubles (Rothschild 1974: 375–76).
Therefore, worried about the stirrings of domestic fascists, Ulmanis
quickly followed Päts’s precedent, overthrew liberal democracy by palace
coup in May 1934, and established an authoritarian regime (Rogainis
1971; Vardys 1978: 74–76; Von Rauch 1995: 154). This move sought
primarily to sideline and suppress the extreme-right Thunder Cross move-
ment, which had even stronger fascist tendencies than Estonia’s Vaps
movement and which took considerable encouragement from Hitler’s
recent takeover in Germany.62 However, in fact, the Thunder Cross was

61
A confidant’s diary reported, “Ulmanis told Päts that he had followed his example”
(Kasekamp 1999: 598 n. 42).
62
Lieven (1993: 70); Von Rauch (1995: 152–53); Kasekamp (2010: 110). Given its racism
and anti-Semitism, Kott (2015: 174–75, 182–88, 191–92) classifies the Thunder Cross as
fully fascist.
266 Conservative–Fascist Relations

much weaker than the Estonian veterans and stood no chance of taking
power in the foreseeable future (Feldmanis 2001: 220–21). Thus, Latvia’s
right-wing radicals posed no realistic threat to liberal democracy
(Ščerbinskis 2011: 192; Hanovs and Tēraudkalns 2013: 22; Kott 2015:
181). Nevertheless, Latvia’s political forces harbored significant fears of
fascism, which the region-wide advance of extreme-right movements and
especially Hitler’s triumph made salient (Berend 1998: 320; Feldmanis
2001: 222). In this context, Estonia’s recent precedent, together with the
broader authoritarian wave unfolding in Europe,63 induced Latvia’s
mainstream conservatives to emulate their northern neighbor and fore-
stall any fascist challenge. External diffusion thus complemented domestic
concerns and helped trigger Ulmanis’s authoritarian self-coup.
Because the threat that Latvia’s authoritarian regime claimed to preempt
lacked acuteness and because the coup therefore found more limited sup-
port than in Estonia (Rothschild 1974: 376), Ulmanis prevented opposition
by governing more autocratically than Estonia’s Päts (Feldmanis 2001:
227; Stranga 2012: 52, 56; Hanovs and Tēraudkalns 2013: 39–42). The
Latvian dictator quickly banned political parties, abolished parliament, and
constructed corporatist institutions modeled on fascist Italy (Von Rauch
1995: 155–56; Butulis 2001: 253–54; Feldmanis 2001: 228–31), with
which Latvia established fairly close relations. But despite some borrowing
from Mussolini, especially in style and discourse, the Baltic country main-
tained an authoritarian, not fascist, regime (assessment in Stranga 2012; see
also Vardys 1978: 77–78). Then in mid-1940, the Soviet Union occupied
all three Baltic States, forcibly imposed communist totalitarianism, and
thus inflicted the fate that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania had narrowly
avoided after Lenin’s revolution in the late 1910s, as Chapter 3 analyzed.
In sum, Estonian and Latvian democracy fell to authoritarian regimes
determined to keep right-wing totalitarians out of power. The rise of fascist
movements provoked the downfall of democracy – but not the adoption of
fascism; instead, the new dictatorships repressed the extreme right-wingers.
Hitler’s scary victory reinforced this backlash by activating cognitive short-
cuts that brought exaggerations and partial misperceptions of the actual
threat. The two Baltic coups thus demonstrate the interaction of diffusion
and counter-diffusion that this book highlights. As so common during the
interwar years, conservative status-quo defenders won out over extremist
challenges – but the main victim was political liberty.

63
To justify the 1934 coup, regime supporters highlighted that, “in early 1934 Latvia was
an island in the midst of dictatorships” (Butulis 2001: 252).
 Authoritarian Coups to Preempt Fascist Takeovers 267

The Struggles of Romania’s Conservative Authoritarians

with a Persistent Fascist Movement
Conservative elites faced particularly powerful and protracted challenges
from right-wing radicals in Romania, where – after Italy and Germany –
the third-strongest fascist movement emerged, as Chapter 7 showed.
Confronting an extreme-right upsurge, status-quo defenders imposed a
royal dictatorship in early 1938, repressed the fanatical upstarts, and
brutally assassinated most of their leaders. But this conservative autocracy
crumbled in 1940, allowing the remnants of the deeply rooted fascist
movement to regain considerable clout. A military dictator therefore initi-
ated a power-sharing experiment – an exceptional attempt at conservative–
fascist cooperation during the interwar years. But the violent turmoil
fomented by the fascists and their clear quest for totalitarian dominance
soon provoked another bloody crackdown, which finally suppressed the
fascists and enabled the military ruler to impose a de-mobilizational, typic-
ally authoritarian regime. Thus, due to the unusual strength of Romania’s
fascist movement, the unlucky country underwent two rounds of authori-
tarian imposition, both times enforced with frightening violence.
As Chapter 7 explained, the zealous Legion of the Archangel Michael aka
Iron Guard, led by the charismatic Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, built an
increasing circle of unconditionally committed disciples after the late
1920s. Patient mobilizational and organizational efforts among long-
neglected sectors initially targeted the countryside. In the mid-1930s, the
fascists then appealed to the urban working and middle class, rapidly
expanding their followership (Schmitt 2013). From the early 1930s onward,
the rise of this religious–political sect (Eliade 1988: 69) caused concern
among Romania’s semi-democratic governments, which responded with
occasional harassment and repression. Under the impression of Hitler’s
takeover in Germany, conservative hardliners saw Romania’s “Hitlerist
movements” as a significant threat and gloated when governmental “repres-
sion [was] beginning with fury” (Călinescu 1999: 191).
Such fears, however, did not prevent King Carol II from trying first to
use the Legion for his own purposes,64 similar to the cunning maneuvers
of Spain’s Franco, Brazil’s Vargas, and Portugal’s Salazar. The king, who
sought to suffocate Romania’s illiberal democracy and extend the royal

64
British diplomats suspected that the king therefore tolerated or subsidized the Legion
(Vago 1975: 25–26, 172–76, 187, 204, 305), partly out of fear of communism (Vago
1975: 227).
268 Conservative–Fascist Relations

powers granted by the constitution (Bucur 2007: 96–102), approached

the Legion with bold cooptation proposals in 1936–37. To turn this anti-
elitist movement into a mainstay of his authoritarian regime project, the
crafty monarch wanted to take over the Legion’s leadership while
appointing the fascists’ original chieftain Codreanu as prime minister
(Müller 2001: 487; Sandu 2014: 131–32, 397). With this ambitious plan,
Carol sought to create a mass base for his planned autocracy.
But after Hitler’s “magnificent victory” in Germany, which Codreanu
(1939: 57, 115, 413–15) celebrated as an uplifting precedent (see also
Köpernik 2014: 19), the fascist leader – employing the availability and
representativeness heuristics – was convinced that his growing mass
following would soon allow him to take power on his own (Haynes
2014: 179). In order not to compromise his outsider challenge to
Romania’s established elites and clientelistic parties of notables, the
Căpitan therefore rejected the king’s domestication project (Heinen
1986: 312–14, 360, 370; Iordachi 2014: 242–43). Thus, Hitler’s success
encouraged the Iron Guard to continue in its totalitarian quest for com-
plete control and reject an alliance with, not to speak of subordination to,
conservative forces intent upon cementing traditional hierarchies and
containing bottom-up mobilization.
Indeed, in 1936 and 1937 the Legion achieved rapid advances with its
energetic recruitment efforts and drew enormous sympathy for two
Legionary “heroes” fallen in the Spanish Civil war (Sturdza 1968: 100;
Călinescu 1999: 334–35). As a worried politician told King Carol in
December 1937, “I can feel the movement to the right like a stampede
of wild horses” (cited in Ioanid 1992: 482). In the parliamentary contest
later that month, “despite electoral pressure and terror . . . in effect the
government was defeated by the opposition for the first time in a
Romanian election” (Shapiro 1974: 54–55), as Carol II (1995: 233)
bemoaned in his diary. Even more shocking was the Iron Guard’s 15.58
percent of the vote, an unprecedented success for an outsider party.65 This
dramatic upsurge seemed to foreshadow a likely triumph in the new
elections scheduled for March 1938 (Nagy-Talavera 1970: 295–96;
Vago 1975: 269, 274; Hitchins 1994: 419; see also Codreanu 1939:
444–45; Shapiro 1974: 84). Codreanu himself hoped for a clear success

65
Maner (2001: 461–62); Clark (2015: 215). Indeed, this official figure was falsified; the
Legion’s actual vote amounted to 22 percent (Haynes 2007: 120; Sandu 2014: 145–46;
Schmitt 2016: 245).
 Authoritarian Coups to Preempt Fascist Takeovers 269

(Schmitt 2016: 251), which would permit a legal takeover of power

(similar to Hitler in January 1933).
In addition, rumor had it that the Legion commanded “a sort of assault
militia which includes around 10,000 men,”66 who were eager for action
and, according to their official slogan, “ready to die.” The government
certainly feared an extreme-right coup in late 1937 and early 1938,
developing “a sort of psychosis about an armed takeover of power”
(Sandu 2014: 133; see also 140). Some Iron Guard cadres indeed con-
sidered in early 1938 making their own “March on Rome” with 400,000
of their supporters (Sturdza 1968: 105–6; Sandu 2014: 154). But Codreanu
was aware of the Legion’s unpreparedness for governing and of its organ-
izational weaknesses and military limitations (Sandu 2014: 143, 147–48,
356–57, 396, 404); therefore, a forceful push would hold high risk. In fact,
the defense minister warned him that any uprising would be suppressed
(Vago 1975: 299). Moreover, the fascist leader did not want to plunge his
country into a civil war similar to Spain, where two leading Legionaries,
sent to help Franco’s forces, had recently died (Schmitt 2016: 253–55).
Yet, despite Codreanu’s hesitations, the king and his conservative entou-
rage feared an Iron Guard seizure of power, via electoral or violent means.
This threat perception gained additional virulence via the availability heur-
istic: After all, a similarly surprising upsurge (18.3 percent in the 1930
elections) had prepared the ground for Hitler’s takeover soon thereafter.
Alarmed about the imminent prospect of a fascist victory, many establish-
ment forces and influential generals therefore pushed King Carol to declare
a royal dictatorship (Fischer-Galati 1971: 113, 117–18; Vago 1975: 40, 43,
48, 268–75, 305; Heinen 1986: 312–14, 364–79; Maner 2001: 462, 467).
The king himself was full of fear, both about Romania’s sociopolitical
stability and his own personal safety, as he indicated in his diaries (Carol
II 1995: 232, 234;67 see also Hohenzollern-Roumania 1988: 172–73, 175,
184, 186, 190; Sandu 2014: 144).
One of Carol’s closest aides highlighted these concerns in his own
contemporary notes. After describing the weakness of “all [other] parties

66
Evola ([1938] 2015: 70; similarly 81); see also Schmitt (2016: 228–29). Interior Minister
Călinescu (1999: 368) referred to this militia as a threat in a royal audience in January
1938. The rumors were probably exacerbated by memories of the Iron Guard’s “death
teams” and “punishment teams” of 1933 and 1936 (Sandu 2014: 111; Clark 2015: 100).
67
Unfortunately, the king’s published diaries cover the 1930s very sporadically. The events
of late 1937 are discussed only in one summary entry for November 2 through December
31 (Carol II 1995: 230–35). Day-by-day entries then start on May 18, 1938, omitting the
royal dictatorship’s installation in February 1938.
270 Conservative–Fascist Relations

[which] have lost their dynamism,” Interior Minister Armand Călinescu

(1999: 371–72) commented in an audience with the King: “The only
popular and dynamic force is the Iron Guard. But this [force] has a
revolutionary character. Her triumph would surely be a catastrophe for
the state.” Shortly thereafter, he warned Carol II in another meeting:
“The big problem remains the Iron Guard . . . They want revolutions.
Why not pre-empt” (Călinescu 1999: 378; see also 373–74).
While the king and his entourage genuinely dreaded the Legion’s
political–electoral upsurge and its penchant for violence and terrorism,
which had already claimed the lives of important government officials,
they also used the danger of a fascist takeover instrumentally. Carol II
invoked this specter to advance his longstanding quest for autocratic
domination, which he had systematically prepared by employing divide-
and-rule tactics to weaken all establishment parties (Rothschild 1974:
304–10; Heinen 1986: 160–65). This mixture of authentic threat percep-
tions and their strategic invocation is common in the complex world of
politics; sorting out each motive’s relative weight is practically impossible.
But, of course, threat perceptions are only of strategic use if the targets of
instrumental appeals believed in the danger – as many Romanians did
(Heinen 1986: 361–62, 366–69). Thus, in direct or indirect ways, the
menace of the Iron Guard played a crucial political role.
To forestall a fascist power grab and “meet the revolution from below
with revolution from above” (Waldeck [1942] 2013: 33), in February
1938 the monarch swept away the remnants of Romania’s democracy,
passed an authoritarian constitution, and outlawed all political parties and
movements (Iordachi 2014: 243).68 Scared by Codreanu’s recent advance,
important party leaders who had long opposed King Carol’s power hunger
now accepted his dictatorship. The monarch indeed moved to eliminate the
untamable Iron Guard and thus cement hierarchical control. Therefore, he

68
Seeing threats emanate from surging fascism, yet also from resurging communism, other
Balkan countries also imposed royal dictatorships. In Bulgaria, establishment sectors
responded to rising fascism (Whetstine 1988: 89–90; Poppetrov 2001: 388–93) by
installing an authoritarian regime in 1934, which King Boris III then took over in early
1935, marginalizing military coup makers (Crampton 2005: 158–62; Poppetrov 1988:
537–41, 545). The monarch was determined to prevent a takeover by Mussolini’s and
Hitler’s sympathizers (Connelly 2020: 428–29), and he combated the revitalized com-
munists as well. Thus, as was common during the 1930s, a conservative autocrat fought
both ideological extremes (Chary 2007: 126–30). Interestingly, however, Boris III felt so
firmly in the saddle that, for years, he did not import fascist instruments for fortifying his
regime, such as a government-run party (Poppetrov 1988: 548–49; see also Groueff 1987:
235–37, 241–42).
 Authoritarian Coups to Preempt Fascist Takeovers 271

soon followed his tough Interior Minister’s recommendations, imprisoned

the Legion’s leadership (Călinescu 1999: 378–81), and had the Căpitan
condemned to ten years of hard labor. As the Iron Guard’s new chief,
young hothead Horia Sima, responded to this repression with retaliatory
violence and a coup plot (Vago 1975: 372; Müller 2001: 489; Clark 2015:
220–21), the king soon had the leading fascist prisoners, including
Codreanu, executed in cold blood (Sturdza 1968: 118–20; Nagy-
Talavera 1970: 301; Payne 1995: 279–89; Ţiu 2009: 19–38).
But this brutal decapitation did not succeed in suppressing the fascist
movement. Instead, the cowardly murder, which the Legion saw like
Christ’s crucifixion, turned the Căpitan into a martyr and reinforced the
fascists’ quasi-religious appeal to sacrifice.69 Moreover, the remaining
Iron Guard fought back and assassinated the mastermind of Carol’s
dictatorship and Codreanu’s execution (Müller 2001: 476–79). In
response, the government intensified its repression, massacred two to
three Legionaries in each county, and displayed their corpses publicly as
a deterrent (Nagy-Talavera 1970: 304; Ţiu 2009: 107–9; Iordachi 2014:
248). Yet this state terror, which killed about 2–3,000 Legionaries
(Köpernik 2014: 48), did not manage to eradicate the Iron Guard.
While violently fighting the fascist challenge, Carol II instituted an
authoritarian regime that rested on military support and cooperation with
established elites, including the leadership of the officially prohibited
parties (Hitchins 1994: 420–22). This royal dictatorship diverged funda-
mentally from fascism. Instead, the autocracy’s architect, Interior
Minister Călinescu (1999: 372), saw as his main model “the German
pre-war system [which] depends only on the sovereign, not the parlia-
ment.” Thus, his main source of inspiration was not Mussolini’s or
Hitler’s new models, but the old and collapsed Kaiserreich! Due to its
hierarchical character, Carol’s regime lacked firm support among the
citizenry. After all, the interior minister highlighted as one of its “practical
results: . . . the evocation of a new spirit; business card: I don’t do politics”
(Călinescu 1999: 380).
But in light of the continuing Iron Guard threat (Călinescu 1999: 380),
the population’s total exclusion could be risky. To patch up this Achilles
heel, Carol II looked to fascist Italy and Nazi Germany for remedies. As
an admirer of Hitler’s and Mussolini’s powerful leadership (Maner 2001:
441–42), he tried to import several elements of fascism to fortify his

69
Codreanu (1939: 54, 283–84, 309, 422); Nagy-Talavera (1970: 266, 269, 318–19);
Ioanid (2004: 437–38); Haynes (2013: 90, 99, 102–9); Clark (2015: 194–95, 202–10).
272 Conservative–Fascist Relations

authoritarian regime, especially against Romania’s fascists (Iordachi

2014: 248–53).
Typically for an elitist autocracy, however, the monarch’s efforts to
boost his personal leadership and win popular support fell on deaf ears
(Nagy-Talavera 1970: 296, 302, 342). The single party that Carol created
from the top down remained faction-ridden and failed to provide a firm,
reliable base for his rule.70 Above all, it did not elicit much, if any,
commitment and enthusiasm from citizens (Hitchins 1994: 423–24). As
an expert concludes, “by contrast to fascism . . . the royal dictatorship did
not dispose of any charismatic or revolutionary capacity for mobilization”
(Müller 2001: 481). Similarly, the youth movement and state-controlled
leisure organizations that the king borrowed from fascist Italy and Nazi
Germany remained empty shells.71 As a specialist judges, “the king’s
concerted efforts to enlist and indoctrinate the youth were largely unsuc-
cessful, this top-down approach to youth mobilization contrasting sharply
with the efficient grassroots proselytizing methods promoted by the
Legion” (Iordachi 2014: 252; similarly Vago 1975: 234, 250).
Because Carol II instituted typical authoritarianism without a popular
base, his regime quickly crumbled when facing external shocks. Once the
king had to make humiliating territorial concessions to Hitler’s inter-
national allies in 1940, “popular demonstrations, many of which were
coordinated by remnants of the Legionary movement, forced Carol to
abdicate” (Haynes 2014: 180–81). Had Romania’s fascists ultimately
won their long struggle against the royal dictator?
With Carol’s downfall, however, army leader Ion Antonescu took
power. To overcome the persistent conflict between conservative authori-
tarians and radical fascists, the new autocrat initiated an unusual experi-
ment in power sharing. He founded a “National Legionary State” that
gave the Iron Guard full participation in the government. While the
general headed the executive branch and placed his aides in crucial
positions, Codreanu’s successor Horia Sima became vice-premier, the
Legion nominated important ministers, and an Iron Guard sympathizer
managed to control the police (Heinen 1986: 430–33; Müller 2001: 491).
Essentially, the fascist movement should serve as the government’s

70
Heinen (1986: 366); Maner (2001: 464–68); Müller (2001: 474–78); Bucur (2007: 108);
see also eyewitness Waldeck ([1942] 2013: 23, 36–37).
71
For all these reasons, Riley’s claim that Carol II undertook “a clear attempt to impose a
fascist regime ‘from above’” and his classification of the royal dictatorship as “statist
fascism” (Riley 2019: 142, 113) are unconvincing.
 Authoritarian Coups to Preempt Fascist Takeovers 273

political wing, while Antonescu controlled most of its administrative and

military wing (Iordachi 2014: 254–59). By giving Romania’s fascists
government influence, Antonescu also sought to win Hitler’s favor, who
had extended Germany’s hegemonic influence over the Balkans.
Interestingly, however, this unprecedented cooperation effort unrav-
eled quickly and turned into “a big failure” (Ţiu 2009: 176; Deletant
2014: 281–83). Conservative authoritarians and dynamic fascists found
collaboration exceedingly difficult, as an Iron Guardist who served as
Antonescu’s foreign minister emphasizes (Sturdza 1968: 168–71, 207,
211–12; see also Iordachi 2014: 256–59; Köpernik 2014: 53–54,
58–61, 64–69, 73–76). Because these different right-wing groupings were
committed to divergent causes and projects, they could not forge a viable
compromise in this “impossible diarchy” (Sandu 2014: 323; see also
329–57; Heinen 1986: 433–42).
After all, Antonescu and his conservative elite supporters sought
authoritarian stability, whereas the Legion wanted to propel totalitarian
transformation, including elite turnover. The fascists, as outsiders, also
had difficulty nominating competent cadres for public offices, thus
threatening the governability and performance that Antonescu wanted
to guarantee (Hitchins 1994: 462–64). Moreover, Iron Guardists com-
monly abused their new power for petty goals, especially personal enrich-
ment and simple revenge, and they continued to employ arbitrary, illegal
violence, for instance by massacring many of the royal dictatorship’s ex-
officials (eyewitness reports in Waldeck [1942] 2013: 200–3, 209,
245–47, 268, 278–83, 290–92; see also Clark 2015: 222–28). The
resulting disorder and chaos quickly discredited the Iron Guard before
the citizenry (Nagy-Talavera 1970: 326–30). And, of course, these out-
rages and atrocities undermined Antonescu’s typically authoritarian quest
for “law and order” (Waldeck [1942] 2013: 213, 216, 245, 283; Deletant
2014: 281–83).
Due to these basic divergences, neither side sought longstanding col-
laboration, but sooner or later wanted to push for predominance, if not
total power (Hitchins 1994: 458; Müller 2001: 494–95). Serious tensions
therefore erupted within weeks (Ţiu 2009: 165–76; Clark 2015: 227–29).
Nazi Germany’s mediation efforts, designed to stabilize Romania, guar-
antee Germany’s oil and food supply, and prepare the 1941 attack on the
Soviet Union, proved ineffectual as well (Köpernik 2014: 59–60, 65–66,
88). As both Antonescu and the Legion realized how precarious the power-
sharing arrangement was, they readied themselves for the inevitable show-
down. Violent conflict indeed exploded after a mere four months. The Iron
274 Conservative–Fascist Relations

Guard started an uprising in January 1941 (Ţiu 2009: 177–84; Köpernik

2014: 82, 87, 94, 96), committing many further atrocities (eyewitness
report in Waldeck [1942] 2013: 346–47). With the approval of Hitler,
who preferred authoritarian stability over chaotic fascism in this satellite
country (Köpernik 2014: 78, 89, 93, 96), Antonescu cracked down reso-
lutely, and with brutal success (Nagy-Talavera 1970: 325–27; Iordachi
2014: 262–63; Clark 2015: 229–32). Command over the military, a crucial
asset of authoritarian rulers, proved decisive. Nowhere did a fascist move-
ment ever win an armed fight; with their control over organized coercion,
conservative forces were unbeatable in this arena.
Following his decisive victory, Antonescu banned the Legion and ruled
alone as a military dictator in a hierarchical, exclusionary regime. After the
fascists had shown their true colors in all their horrors, the new round of
heavy-handed repression finally proved effective in suppressing the Iron
Guard definitively (Payne 1995: 391–97; Mann 2004: 288–95; Ţiu 2009:
190–99). While Antonescu sought to legitimate his authoritarian rule with
plebiscites, he made no effort to stimulate mass mobilization and create a
regime party, drawing a clear distance to fascism (Nagy-Talavera 1970: 294,
312, 315, 328–29). As a knowledgeable observer concludes, “Nothing could
be more erroneous than to consider the Antonescu regime Fascist after
February 1941. It was an old-fashioned military dictatorship . . . an updated
status quo ante” (Nagy-Talavera 1970: 343–44; similarly Hitchins 1994:
469, 476–78). Strikingly, Hitler also backed this authoritarian regime
because it served Germany’s economic and political interests much better
than an inexperienced, unruly horde of fascists would; thus, even the fascist
hegemon put instrumental considerations ahead of ideological sympathies.72
The rapid implosion of Antonescu’s unique collaboration project cor-
roborates that conservative authoritarianism and mobilizational fascism,
despite right-wing affinities, invariably stood in fundamental tension.73
As a leading Romanian expert highlights, “the main stumbling block . . .
was the cleavage between the conservative right and the fascist Legion”

72
The conflict between Antonescu and the Legionaries caused tensions among Nazi offi-
cials, however: NSDAP and SS members supported their fascist brethren, whereas
German diplomats and military officers backed the authoritarian dictator.
73
Müller (2001: 496–98) systematically compares and classifies Carol’s royal dictatorship, the
National Legionary State, and Antonescu’s military regime. Unconvincingly, Ioanid (2009:
399) classifies the first and third as fascist, while Iordachi (2014) calls all three regimes “hybrid
totalitarian experiments”; but the striking instability of the royal dictatorship and especially
the National Legionary State demonstrates the fundamental incompatibility of authoritarian-
ism and fascism, which Iordachi (2014: 264) stresses as well.
 Authoritarian Coups to Preempt Fascist Takeovers 275

(Iordachi 2014: 264). Hybrids quickly proved unviable. A main reason

for this incompatibility was fascists’ conviction in their inevitable tri-
umph, which made real compromises with authoritarians look unneces-
sary and inadvisable. This optimistic belief was fueled by the precedents
of Mussolini and Hitler. Because charismatic leaders claimed total
predominance, enforced conformity, and limited internal debate, fascist
movements were highly susceptible to the problematic inferences sug-
gested by cognitive shortcuts. Due to their deficient information process-
ing and lopsided decision-making, they fell for rash inferences inspired
by foreign successes. None of these optimistic beliefs came true,
however, as is common in the world of bounded rationality. Instead,
conservative elites won the power struggles against surging fascists and
imposed authoritarian regimes, as happened in Romania both in
1938 and in 1941.

The Struggles of Austrian Conservatives with Fascist

and Nazi Movements
Austrian conservatives, firmly rooted in the Habsburgs’ Catholic and
corporatist traditions, faced especially complex challenges during the
interwar years. Political conflict in the mutilated country revolved around
the stark division between the industrialized metropolis of Vienna and the
backward, rural hinterlands. The “red fortress” of the capital was dom-
inated by a powerful, doctrinaire Social-Democratic Party, which
diverged from its moderate German counterpart by remaining “an ortho-
dox radical Marxist movement” (Bartolini 2000: 81);74 its ideological
pronouncements instilled exaggerated fears in status-quo defenders
(Kindermann 1984: 55–59; also Brook-Shepherd 1962: 29–32). By con-
trast, in the heavily religious provinces the arch-conservative Christian-
Social Party prevailed (Pelinka 2017: chaps. 5, 6, 10), allied with smaller
German-nationalist groupings (Simon 1978: 84–93). Acute disagreements
over religion (Walterskirchen 2004: 33–37), resentments exacerbated by
a left-wing uprising in 1927, and the punishing fallout of the Great
Depression frayed the willingness to compromise and fomented radical-
ization among the political right, fostered by the reactionary groundswell
in Europe. Consequently, ongoing efforts to stabilize democracy by
forging agreements between Social Democrats and Christian-Socials

74
Christian-Social leaders, such as Kurt Schuschnigg (1937: 68, 108, 147, 214), emphasized
the Social Democrats’ radicalism.
276 Conservative–Fascist Relations

increasingly ran afoul of deepening divides (Brook-Shepherd 1962:

50–77; Simon 1978: 104–7).
Moreover, democracy’s fate in this small country, wedged between
powerful Germany and Italy, was heavily shaped by external develop-
ments, especially those neighbors’ descent into reactionary autocracy.
From the 1920s onward, Mussolini promoted his regime model by sup-
porting the paramilitary Heimwehr (Home Defense Guard) and pushing
it toward fascism.75 The NSDAP’s rise in Germany then boosted the
Austrian Nazi party, Hitler’s fifth column in his home country. In the
early 1930s, these extreme right-wingers started a determined push for
power with the mix of electoral mobilization and violence that worked so
well in Germany (Peniston-Bird 2009: 441–43). When Hitler became
chancellor in Berlin, he gave his Austrian followers forceful support
(Tálos 2013: 496, 501, 537–42), with the ultimate goal of incorporating
Austria into a greater Germany (Anschluß). This expansionist project,
however, drew stubborn opposition from Hitler’s fascist role model
Mussolini, who claimed the alpine country as part of Italy’s sphere of
influence (Walterskirchen 2004: 147–64). As Austria’s Christian-Socials
understood, “Mussolini . . . has no interest that the Nazis take over in
Austria. For him, the Nazis are a pure movement toward Anschluß” (in
Goldinger 1980: 229).
Austrian conservatives thus faced the strongest ideological and geopol-
itical cross-pressures of any country during the interwar years. To navi-
gate this lions’ den, the Christian-Social Party tried, with strong backing
from the Catholic Church (Ebner 2013: 164–68; Tálos 2013: 240–52), to
play the rival forces off against each other. Specifically, they combated
their most dangerous adversaries while making temporary concessions to
weaker contenders. To keep the Austrian Nazis out of power, the
Christian-Social leadership under Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuß reluc-
tantly granted the Mussolini-supported Heimwehr fascists participation
in the government (Brook-Shepherd 1962: 88–89, 96; Kindermann 1984:
72–73; Walterskirchen 2004: 101, 107–8).
Yet Hitler’s impressive advance in 1932 and triumph in 1933 gave an
“enormous impetus” to the Austrian Nazis (Starhemberg 1942: 100),
who achieved striking electoral gains in 1932 (Simon 1978: 107–9;
Pauley 1981: 78–86, 89–90, 102–3, 121). This unexpected upsurge
“created a sensation” (Starhemberg 1942: 82) and struck excessive fear,

75
Starhemberg (1942: 90–94, 104, 108–9); Dollfuß (1994: 176–77, 244–45, 350);
Maderthaner and Maier (2004); Peniston-Bird (2009: 438–40, 443–44).
 Authoritarian Coups to Preempt Fascist Takeovers 277

if not panic, among establishment sectors, especially the conservative

Christian-Socials, who dreaded the extremist, violent opponents on their
far-right flank. This fear prompted a desperate determination to fight the
Nazi threat. Remarkably, a Christian-Social politician “declare[d] that in
the fight against the NS, I will link up even with the devil” (cited in
Walterskirchen 2004: 143). A study based on interviews with surviving
participants captures these exaggerated threat perceptions, which suggest
the operation of the cognitive shortcuts highlighted in this book (Brook-
Shepherd 1962: 76):76
Hitler’s triumph in Germany dragged the Austrian Nazi Party abruptly onto its
feet again, and indeed made the puppet look a great deal bigger than it was, with
disastrous consequences for Austria. The National Socialists’ successes in the
Austrian provincial elections of 1932 were mistaken by the Vienna psephologists
[= analysts of elections and voting statistics] as heralding a political landslide,
when in fact their main feature was merely an internal shift of loyalty within the
pan-German camp as such. This miscalculation contributed powerfully to that
dread which made Dollfuss – and Schuschnigg after him – shrink back before the
challenge of new parliamentary elections in Austria. The challenge became greater
the longer it was evaded.

Thus, while firing up Hitler’s disciples in Austria, the striking German

precedent made conservative establishment forces overestimate their suc-
cesses and see a similar tsunami approaching. The availability and repre-
sentativeness heuristics boosted imitation efforts among Austria’s National
Socialists – yet they also inspired excessive fear among their moderate-right
opponents. In reality, however, the potential growth of the Nazi vote was
probably limited. After all, Austria’s main parties, the Social Democrats
and the Christian-Socials, consistently commanded about 80 percent of
voter support; and those two camps had proven immune to the Nazis’
electoral advance in Germany and were suffering only limited erosion in
Austria during the early 1930s (Simon 1978: 107–9). But although the
actual risk of a Nazi avalanche was low, Hitler’s stunning success in
Germany, interpreted via the heuristics of availability and representative-
ness, made Austria’s leading politicians foresee a replication.
Accordingly, right after the German Nazis’ electoral victory of March
5, 1933, Chancellor Dollfuß warned Christian-Social leaders of an immi-
nent “National-Socialist wave sweeping across Austria . . . If we get into
that flood, we’ll be finished. We’ll be the future battlefield” (in Goldinger

76
This emphasis on miscalculations and mistakes is noteworthy because Brook-Shepherd is
sympathetic, even biased, toward the Christian Socials and Chancellor Dollfuß.
278 Conservative–Fascist Relations

1980: 132–33). In response, the Christian-Social Minister of Defense

advocated, “This wave must immediately be hacked off” (in Goldinger
1980: 135). Soon thereafter, another Christian-Social politician expressed
his excessive dread: “If the Nazi win a mere 30 percent of the vote, they will
get the dictatorship” (in Goldinger 1980: 181). Due to these exaggerated
threat perceptions, Dollfuß blocked the Nazis’ insistent demand for new
elections (Kindermann 1984: 150, 155, 196). After all, conservative polit-
icians feared that “new elections today mean a debacle . . . New
elections . . . would bring an extraordinary loss [because] the development
among the people approximates . . . Germany [where] millions [even] upper
Bavarian farmers, the firmest type of people, voted Nazi” (in Goldinger
1980: 151, 153). Thus, “the Christian-Social leadership panicked . . .
frightened by [a] rather improbable bogy . . . [It] contrived to postpone
new elections . . . [making] a costly error” (Brook-Shepherd 1962: 87–88).
Even more consequentially, the deterrent effect of this radical-right
threat was the main reason for the Christian-Social incumbent to take
advantage of a political accident, keep parliament closed after March
1933, and assume increasing dictatorial powers. To forestall the usage of
democracy by democracy’s worst enemies (Starhemberg 1942: 109–10),
the conservative chancellor himself strangled democracy. Notably, Dollfuß
moved toward authoritarianism right when Hitler pursued his dramatic
Machtergreifung (Kindermann 1984: 63–68; Tálos 2013: 38, 52–63,
502–3; Botz 2017: 146–47). Specifically, Austria’s government enforced
the suspension of parliament immediately after the German Nazis’ above-
mentioned electoral victory (Dollfuß 1994: 122–28, 137–39).
Thereafter, Dollfuß governed based on obscure and controversial
emergency provisions adopted during WWI, employing an authoritarian
equivalent to the infamous Ermächtigungsgesetz with which Hitler built
his totalitarianism (Ermakoff 2008). But rather than imitating his former
compatriot by imposing a fascist dictatorship, Dollfuß erected a conserva-
tive authoritarian regime and used its antidemocratic mechanisms to
combat the Austrian Nazis to his right, and the Austro-Marxists to his
left. To succeed on this dangerous “march in between two abysses” and
“conduct our war against both fronts,” as Christian-Social leaders framed
their struggle (Goldinger 1980: 154, 238), the chancellor outlawed the
Nazi party and resolutely combated its campaign of violence,77 while also

77
Seeing the electoral route foreclosed, Austria’s Nazis employed intensified terror (Gunther
1934: 310–11; Brook-Shepherd 1962: 194, 198, 215, 225–26), culminating in the bloody
coup attempt of July 1934 (Brook-Shepherd 1962: chap. 8).
 Authoritarian Coups to Preempt Fascist Takeovers 279

banning the Social Democrats’ paramilitary formation. Dollfuß’s authori-

tarian regime thus employed determined coercion, even reintroducing the
death penalty and threatening its usage against “terrorists.”
With his step-wise self-coup, Dollfuß instituted a Catholic authoritar-
ian regime that combated the domestic Nazi party and rejected integra-
tion with Germany. Although the new dictator drew support from the
fascist Heimwehr,78 he built a conservative autocracy that differed quali-
tatively from the mass-mobilizational fascism pushed hard by Austria’s
protector and Heimwehr funder Mussolini.79 Imposed by an incumbent
government from the top down and consolidated through a corporatist
constitution, the Austrian dictatorship lacked the bottom-up dynamism
and fervent popular commitment of Italian fascism. Indeed, Dollfuß
deliberately evaded Mussolini’s constant pressures to install full-scale
fascism (Maderthaner and Maier 2004: 24–25, 39, 46, 58–61). With
unfulfilled promises, limited concessions, and passive resistance,
Austria’s chancellor kept his international protector at bay.
While facing the pushy advocates of Italian fascism and the violent
hordes of National Socialism on the right, Dollfuß also had to contend
with the powerful and radical-sounding, though reformist, Austro-
Marxists on the left. Interestingly, the Social-Democratic leadership
refrained from frontally combating the gradual institution of conservative
authoritarianism in order not to provoke a government attack and not to
open the door for a brutal Nazi onslaught. But in early 1934, a local
socialist grouping responded to a police provocation with armed resist-
ance, which immediately triggered a countrywide uprising. The authori-
tarian regime took advantage of this opportunity and crushed the left in a
violent struggle that Christian-Social politicians framed as bringing
“either victory of the Dollfuß government or Bolshevism” (Goldinger
1980: 357). By employing brute Heimwehr and military force,80 the
chancellor also sought to deflate the radical right by satisfying its

78
The fascist Heimwehr, though boosted by Mussolini’s support in 1933/34 (Wohnout
2012: 21–22), did not seriously endanger the authoritarian regime leadership because it
suffered from organizational fragmentation and ideological divisions (Wenninger 2013:
512–14; Pelinka 2017: 128).
79
Documents in Maderthaner and Maier (2004: 24–25, 31, 39, 44, 46, 58–60); see also
Wohnout (2012: 20–21, 27–29); Tálos (2013: 14, 26–29, 40–44, 63, 491).
80
Simon (1978: 115–17); Tálos (2013: 279–83). In late 1933, Dollfuß had told Christian-
Social leaders, “If [the Social Democrats] make stupidities, we will proceed with all
brutality” (Goldinger 1980: 280). As Starhemberg (1942: 125, 132) admits, the uprising’s
repression included atrocities such as extra-judicial executions (also Simon 1978: 117).
280 Conservative–Fascist Relations

eagerness for attacking “Marxism” and to concede one of Mussolini’s

insistent demands.81
After destroying the Social-Democratic labor movement, Dollfuß
allegedly planned a violent attack against Austria’s Nazis as well
(Starhemberg 1942: 149). But Hitler’s disciples anticipated this move
and started an ill-organized uprising in July 1934, which killed the
chancellor himself (Kindermann 1984: 94–110, 196–207; Schafranek
2013: 110–14). Successor Kurt von Schuschnigg squashed this rebellion
with full force, drawing on Mussolini’s support to keep Nazi Germany
from interfering. As a Heimwehr leader had demanded, “We must meet
National Socialist terrorism with even worse terrorism” (Starhemberg
1942: 103). The resulting crackdown, which landed thousands of
Austrian National Socialists in camps and jails (see Schuschnigg 1937:
319–20), hardened the authoritarian regime further (Pauley 1981:
105–12, 138, 165; Kindermann 1984: 157–58; Wohnout 2003: 152–53).
Because Italian threats forced Germany’s dictator to back off from his
native country and domestic coercion kept the Austrian Nazis at bay
(Schafranek 2013; Tálos 2013: 283–85, 502–3), new dictator
Schuschnigg managed to stabilize the conservative authoritarian regime,
which was reinforced by elements of Catholic corporatism (Gunther
1934: 314–16; Maderthaner and Maier 2004: 31–32, 44, 49). As soon
as the autocrat sat more firmly in the saddle, he marginalized the
Heimwehr (Schuschnigg 1937: 300–7; Wohnout 2003: 156–57; Tálos
2013: 64–65, 199, 208–12; Wenninger 2013: 518–22). Typically, thus,
the authoritarian ruler subjugated the domestic fascists. But this tempor-
ary relief was short-lived for international reasons: Germany’s strength
kept surging. When Hitler started forcefully to revise the Versailles peace
settlement, his first target was Austria, which he incorporated into his
totalitarian dictatorship in early 1938.
Despite the eventual, externally determined outcome, this unusual case
demonstrates the domestic strength of conservative forces and their des-
perate efforts to avoid both a Nazi takeover and a fascist transformation.
Indeed, the machinations of Dollfuß and Schuschnigg exemplify both of
the conservative–fascist relationships examined in this chapter: The
authoritarian rulers employed support from the fascist, Italy-oriented
Heimwehr to establish a hierarchical, elitist autocracy – and keep the
more radical, terrorist Austrian Nazis out of power. Thus, Dollfuß and

81
According to Portugal’s ambassador in Rome, fascist Italy stood ready to help Dollfuß
crush Social Democracy (Castro 1934b: folhas 5–6).
 Authoritarian Coups to Preempt Fascist Takeovers 281

Schuschnigg used fascists for their own, conservative authoritarian goals,

as Franco, Vargas, and Salazar did; and these goals included suppressing
another, more threatening current of fascism, just as Päts, Carol II,
Antonescu, and Boris III did. Thus, due to Austria’s unfortunate location,
in between sorcerer Mussolini and his master-apprentice Hitler, the polit-
ical and ideological frontlines in this exceptional case were even more
fragmented than in the remainder of interwar Europe; remarkably, even
different wings of fascism fought each other. As happened throughout the
reverse wave, however, the principal casualties were freedom and
democracy.

Conclusion: Imposing Authoritarianism to Preempt Fascism

This subsection has offered particularly striking evidence for the double
deterrent effect. In several countries, elitist status-quo defenders over-
threw liberal democracy to prevent rising fascist movements from taking
power. What triggered these preemptive self-coups was an acute threat
not from the radical left, but the radical right. While conservative authori-
tarians cooperated with fascists when perceiving a strong challenge from
left-wing revolutionaries, they otherwise sought to keep these fanatical,
violent promoters of reactionary totalitarianism at bay. Therefore, when
these upstart movements seemed about to seize power, status-quo defend-
ers closed down democracy and imposed conservative authoritarianism.
The upsurge of the radical right, which in turn had emerged in oppos-
ition to the radical left, was seen as a grave danger by conservative status-
quo defenders. Elites dreaded not only the revolutionary challenge of
communism but also the dynamic, totalitarian transformation sought by
fascism. The menace posed by Mussolini and Hitler’s admirers gained
special salience in 1933, when Germany’s new dictator easily broke
through conservatives’ containment efforts and subordinated these previ-
ously powerful sectors to his unaccountable, omnipotent leadership.
Scared by this precedent, establishment sectors in other countries were
eager to prevent similar power grabs – and therefore suppressed growing
fascist movements with coercive means. Due to this nervous overreaction,
three of the four preemptive self-coups occurred immediately after
Germany’s descent into totalitarianism, in 1933/34. These fierce struggles
among non-democratic right-wingers, which invariably ended with fas-
cists’ defeat and the imposition or hardening of conservative authoritar-
ianism, demonstrate the importance of the double deterrent effect for
democracy’s destruction during the interwar years.
282 Conservative–Fascist Relations

   

-
While in Estonia, Romania, and Austria, establishment sectors preempted
power seizures by fascist outsiders, in other countries, authoritarian rulers
blocked fascist transformation efforts by regime insiders. Thus, conserva-
tive groupings defeated not only fascist challenges pushed from the
bottom up but also those initiated from the top down. After all,
Mussolini’s innovation often had powerful adherents among the founders
of reactionary dictatorships, who sometimes used their positions inside
the authoritarian regime to push toward totalitarian fascism.
Any effort to overcome the gulf between autocratic regime types was
by nature difficult, however. How to move from static, de-mobilizational
authoritarianism to dynamic, mobilizational fascism? Conservative
status-quo defenders feared a loss of control and stubbornly resisted what
they saw as a leader’s quest for omnipotence. Those sectors commanded
major power capabilities, including military coercion, especially where
the existing autocracy had achieved consolidation and built an alliance of
supporters. The “seizure group” (Geddes, Wright, and Frantz 2018) that
had imprinted its authoritarian stamp when founding the dictatorship
managed to defend its elitist, non-participatory nature against internal
turncoats who came to push for its fundamental transmutation.
Conservative containment therefore foiled insider efforts at
fascist metamorphosis.
Certainly, in Germany in 1933, such a conservative taming strategy had
failed quickly and spectacularly. But this dam break happened only because
Hitler headed a massive popular movement and pushed for totalitarianism
immediately after assuming government power. In this unsettled situation,
overwhelming, violent mass mobilization managed to dislodge conservative
groupings, as Chapter 6 analyzed. By contrast, in the established authori-
tarian regimes of Europe’s underdeveloped periphery (Sundhaussen 2001:
341–46), containment strategies uniformly succeeded in blocking projects
of fascist metamorphosis. In these settings, conservative elites commanded
predominant influence, whereas fascist-leaning regime officials had diffi-
culty stirring up fervent mass support from the top down. Indeed, the scary
German precedent steeled authoritarian incumbents’ resolve to prevent
their countries from following Hitler’s totalitarian path. Thus, the double
deterrent effect operated again, disadvantaging fascism and favoring con-
servative authoritarianism.
 Authoritarian Containment of Fascist Regime-Insiders 283

Taming a Fascist Regime Insider in Hungary’s Authoritarian Regime

The most important case of a fascist insider project and its successful
containment occurred in Hungary, where conservative authoritarians
around head of state – Regent – Miklós Horthy managed to control
right-wing extremist Gyula Gömbös, who won the premiership in
1932 and sought to follow Mussolini’s and Hitler’s footsteps. Gömbös
had promoted extreme-right ideas since the abortive communist revolu-
tion of 1919 (see Chapter 3), which had radicalized part of Hungary’s
right (see Chapter 4). With the paramilitary squad he had created to fight
the Soviet Republic, fascist-leaning Gömbös had supported Horthy’s
counterrevolutionary takeover. But after extirpating the communist chal-
lenge, the Regent moderated and returned to his conservative roots
(Nagy-Talavera 1970: 53; Sakmyster 2006: 81). With the re-imposition
of order and the reversal of the communist land reform, conservative
elites recovered their hold over good parts of the citizenry, especially in
the countryside of this “backward” nation (Janos 1982; Mann 2004:
241, 257). Horthy, therefore, instituted a competitive-authoritarian
regime, which engineered electoral victories for its long-governing conser-
vative prime minister, István Bethlen, through widespread clientelism,
pressure, and intimidation (Nagy-Talavera 1970: 55–64; Rothschild
1974: 158–66; Wittenberg 2014: 221–23). With stability guaranteed,
Horthy marginalized right-wing radicals like Gömbös.
The Hungarian fascist admired Mussolini from the beginning,82
earning the nickname “Gombolini” (Dreisziger 1968: 35; Pinto 2014:
103). In the early 1920s, Gömbös also maintained contacts with the
German Nazis (Ludecke [1937] 2013: 102–3, 112). The Magyar right-
winger sought to organize a “White International” that would frontally
combat communism in Eastern and Central Europe and even in the
tottering Soviet Union itself (Sakmyster 2006: 71–74).83 Moreover, in
coordination with Hitler’s coup plan, Gömbös intended to replicate
Mussolini’s March on Rome in late 1923 (Sakmyster 2006: 134–38; see
also Ormos 2007: 242), but the police foiled his preparations, as
Chapter 5 mentioned. After his failure to overthrow the conservative
authoritarian regime, Gömbös for years languished as head of a weak
opposition party.

82
Nagy-Talavera (1970: 71–74, 81); Zeidler (2014: 125); Kallis (2016: 310).
83
On this project, see also “letter of Erich von Ludendorff to Miklós Horthy” of August 19,
1920, reprinted in Szinai and Szücz (1965: 26–29).
284 Conservative–Fascist Relations

Horthy’s competitive authoritarianism turned more precarious during

the Great Depression, however. Widespread hardships fueled renewed
radical-left agitation, which evoked the trauma of the Soviet Republic,
and boosted the radical right (Szöllösi-Janze 1989: 90; Sakmyster 2006:
169–70). Moreover, fascist movements were advancing all across Europe,
especially in Germany. Domestic discontent and regional demonstration
effects strengthened right-wing forces inside the regime and beyond
(Rothschild 1974: 170–71; Sakmyster 2006: 170; see also Janos 1982:
260–61). Facing pressures, Horthy felt compelled to appoint Gömbös,
who had seemingly moderated and returned to the government fold, as
prime minister in 1932.
While Gömbös’ ultimate plans are not completely clear (Zeidler 2014:
133–35), the available evidence suggests that he intended to transform
Hungary’s authoritarian regime from the inside into totalitarian fascism.
The new prime minister maintained close contacts to Mussolini’s Italy
and Nazi Germany and took much inspiration from these models
(Dreisziger 1968: 45–46; Berend 1998: 310; Ormos 2007: 241–43). In
fact, he allegedly promised a leading Hitler aide in 1935 to impose
totalitarianism and anti-Semitism (Kónya 1969: 319, n. 65; Nagy-
Talavera 1970: 95, 99, 101, 103; Sakmyster 2006: 183; Zeidler
2014: 132).
But the conservative head of state, who retained ultimate control,
continued to harbor strong reservations about Gömbös’ fascist leanings
(Horthy [1953] 2011: 139–40, 142). Therefore, he imposed significant
limitations on the prime minister to forestall any push to full-scale fas-
cism.84 For instance, Gömbös was compelled to forego radical land
reform, which would have undermined rural clientelism and greatly
weakened elite control (Nagy-Talavera 1970: 88–92; Janos 1982:
287–88; Zeidler 2014: 127). The entrenched power of Hungary’s conser-
vative establishment limited the prime minister’s room of maneuver inside
the regime (Ormos 2007: 237, 243, 253–55, 259–60).
Moreover, in stark contrast to Mussolini and Hitler, Gömbös was not
leading a fascist mass movement, and he undertook no efforts to mobilize
widespread popular support (Nagy-Talavera 1970: 77; Carsten 1982:
173; Ormos 2007: 243, 261). Hungary’s small and fragmented fascist
movements, which had formed independently (Payne 1995: 270–71),
rejected cooptation where Gömbös attempted it; indeed, he mostly tried

84
Dreisziger (1968: 33–34); Rothschild (1974: 172–73); Szöllösi-Janze (1989: 90);
Sakmyster (2006: 172–73, 179–80).
 Authoritarian Containment of Fascist Regime-Insiders 285

to repress extreme right-wingers (Nagy-Talavera 1970: 106–13; Berend

1998: 310; Mann 2004: 243; Riley 2019: 179). The resulting lack of a
mass base crucially limited the prime minister’s political clout.
For these reasons, Gömbös’ effort to push Hungary toward fascism
advanced only haltingly. Gradually, he eroded the stranglehold of the
conservative establishment, which actively and passively resisted his ini-
tiatives (Kónya 1969: 305–7, 311–13, 321–28; Ormos 2007: 237, 243,
253–55; Zeidler 2014: 128–33). He also appointed more radical right-
wingers to cabinet ministries and military command posts (Ormos 2007:
257, 261, 266, 315; see also Kónya 1969: 314–15). Hungary’s aspiring
Vezér (= Führer, Duce) also tried hard to reorient the stodgy government
party toward mass mobilization (Nagy-Talavera 1970: 94–95). But this
top-down effort to transform a patronage machine run by notables into a
dynamic fascist movement made only slow and limited progress.
Moreover, Gömbös immediately demanded new elections (see
1933 document reprinted in Szinai and Szücs 1965: 62). After all, gov-
ernment influence over the voting process would enable him to purge
conservative politicians and promote radical right-wingers. But his con-
servative opponents long resisted this ploy, which resembled Hitler’s
push for new elections in early 1933, a crucial step in the totalitarian
Machtergreifung (Rothschild 1974: 172). For some unknown
reason, Horthy suddenly relented in early 1935 and granted Gömbös’
request (Kónya 1969: 328–30). The prime minister immediately took
advantage of this opportunity. With massive government patronage and
intimidation, he engineered an election triumph, which broke conserva-
tives’ stranglehold over the party system and boosted radical-right influ-
ence in parliament (Rothschild 1974: 174–75; Ormos 2007: 256–57).
Gömbös expected this breakthrough to allow for a move toward full-scale
fascism.
The legislature, however, was not the main seat of power in Hungary’s
competitive-authoritarian regime. Conservatives’ well-entrenched
strength in state and society continued to limit Gömbös’ latitude and
brought noteworthy setbacks for his transformation project. For instance,
the prime minister did not manage to institute a corporatist system of
interest representation inspired by the Italian model (Zeidler 2014: 132).
This plan, which may have also tried to trim the role of parties and
parliament (Kónya 1969: 317–21; Ormos 2007: 241–42, 251), faced
outspoken opposition from powerful business associations, and resistance
from the weakened unions and the social-democratic party (Ormos 2007:
254, 257–60, 316–17).
286 Conservative–Fascist Relations

More broadly, Gömbös’ growing influence provoked the formation of

an opposition coalition of conservative party politicians, state officials,
landowners, and business people that leaned on the main power holder,
Regent Horthy (Rothschild 1974: 175; Sakmyster 2006: 184; Ormos
2007: 258–60; see also Kónya 1969: 310–12, 322–23). Hitler’s scary
precedent helped to motivate their resistance. The conservative establish-
ment’s leader, ex-Prime Minister István Bethlen, expressed in a high-
profile speech his fear that Hungary “will become a guinea pig for
immature, bizarre ideas imported from abroad. We are going to see more
toying with National Socialist ideas, party totalitarianism, the formation
of SS and SA units and similar things, economic planning and corporate
systems, which will jeopardize the peace, order, credit and security of the
country” (quoted in Ormos 2007: 256; on this speech, see also Kónya
1969: 331–32). This conservative counter-pressure forced a compromise
that “in the longer run meant the failure of Gömbös’ plans” for a fascist
transformation of the government party (Szöllösi-Janze 1989: 90), the
prime minister’s main instrument for regime change.
Most importantly, Gömbös’ push toward fascism worried conservative
Horthy, who held well-known misgivings about Hitler, especially after the
Nazi purges of “the bloody June 30th, 1934” (Horthy [1953] 2011: 146;
see also Dreisziger 1968: 42). To stop his own prime minister’s dangerous
transformation project, the Regent claims that he decided to dismiss
Gömbös. Allegedly, he refrained from this drastic step only because the
PM unexpectedly fell ill in early 1936 and then died later that year (Horthy
[1953] 2011: 142; see also Dreisziger 1968: 49; Nagy-Talavera 1970: 100;
Sakmyster 2006: 185, 192, 199; Ormos 2007: 259). Thus, due to persistent
obstacles posed by well-entrenched conservative forces, Gömbös failed to
transform Hungary from conservative authoritarianism to fascist totalitar-
ianism (Vago 1975: 265; Carsten 1982: 173; Ormos 2007: 259–60).
Gömbös’ long and unsuccessful struggles show the difficulty of over-
coming the gulf between the two main types of reactionary autocracy.
Contrary to recent hybridization claims (cf. Dobry 2011; Kallis 2016;
Roberts 2016; Pinto 2017), right-wing authoritarianism differed greatly
from fascism. A regime insider without mass support could not bridge this
gap. Instead, the conservative taming strategy that failed so rapidly and
drastically in Germany in 1933 succeeded in Hungary shortly there-
after.85 Interestingly, one important reason for Gömbös’ failure was the

85
Pittaway (2009: 385). In fact, conservative resistance succeeded again when Prime
Minister Béla Imrédy in 1938 embraced fascist radicalism (Nagy-Talavera 1970:
 Authoritarian Containment of Fascist Regime-Insiders 287

deterrent effect of Hitler’s success, which exacerbated conservative resist-

ance. Moreover, Hungary’s “backwardness” (Janos 1982; similarly
Berend 1998) gave traditional elites enormous clout and long limited
the opportunities for fascist mobilization. Indeed, Gömbös “fell between
two stools,” stifled by conservative authoritarians and distant from
Hungary’s incipient, fragmented fascist movements. Fascism’s installation
from above, without fervent popular support, was not a winning formula
(Szöllösi-Janze 1989: 95).86

Continuing Conservative–Fascist Struggles and the Hardening

of Hungarian Authoritarianism
With Gömbös’ failure, Hungary had not definitively averted the extreme-
right challenge, however. Instead, in the late 1930s, charismatic Ferenc
Szálasi won over fascist-leaning regime insiders left orphaned by Gömbös’
death (Ormos 2007: 257, 266) and gathered a snowballing popular
following (Szöllösi-Janze 1989: 101–16). Fascism’s advance across
Europe, as manifested in Codreanu’s surging Legion in neighboring
Romania and in neighboring Austria’s Anschluß to Nazi Germany
(Sakmyster 2006: 207), gave Szálasi’s Arrow Cross movement additional
boosts. Hitler’s regime, which Szálasi visited for weeks in 1936, served as
a particularly important model (Szöllösi-Janze 1989: 107–8, 209, 217).
But facing competitive authoritarianism, not the electoral openness of a
democracy as Hitler had in Germany, the ever more potent Arrow Cross

136–37, 146–50; Wittenberg 2014: 227–28). Gömbös’ adversary Bethlen again spear-
headed the resistance (see blistering “Memorandum” reprinted in Szinai and Szücs 1965:
112–20), which convinced Horthy soon to dismiss Imrédy (Vago 1975: 406; Szöllösi-
Janze 1989: 122–24).
86
Similar to Hungary, conservative containment efforts succeeded in Lithuania during the
late 1920s and early 1930s. When Prime Minister Augustinas Voldemaras moved toward
fascism, he seemed to threaten the authoritarian regime that President Antanas Smetona
had imposed with a 1926 coup (discussed briefly in Chapter 7). To promote his extreme-
right turn, Voldemaras, “this would-be Lithuanian duce” (Misiunas 1970: 102), fostered
the “overtly fascistic ‘Iron Wolf’ paramilitary organization” (Lieven 1993: 66) and used it
for advancing his ideological ambitions. To forestall this intra-regime challenge, Smetona
in 1929 dismissed Voldemaras and soon dissolved the Iron Wolf (Rothschild 1974:
378–79). Hardcore fascists, however, went underground and “staged repeated coup
attempts to bring Voldemaras to power” (Lieven 1993: 66). After the most dangerous
such challenge in 1934, the president finally imprisoned his former prime minister and
thus managed to suppress the fascist threat definitively (Misiunas 1970: 103–5). In these
ways, Lithuania’s conservative authoritarianism blocked an internal transformation into
totalitarian fascism.
288 Conservative–Fascist Relations

first sought to induce extreme-right military officers to dislodge the con-

servative government in a coup (Nagy-Talavera 1970: 129–31, 134; Vago
1975: 214, 252; Sakmyster 2006: 196, 203–4, 208).
Despite strong fascist sympathies,87 however, many officers refused to
defy Regent Horthy, who condemned the military’s infiltration and
threatened radical-right “subversives” with drastic retaliation: “At one
time already we showed, in 1919, that we were able of cleaning our
country and nation of subversive elements, and I may assure the country
even now that we have forgotten nothing of what we were capable of
doing at that time” (reprinted in Szinai and Szücs 1965: 98, 100). Thus,
after conservatives had unleashed “white terror” against the communist
left and its effort to emulate Lenin’s totalitarian regime, they now invoked
this traumatic experience against the fascist right and its plan to imitate
Hitler’s totalitarian regime – a clear indication of the double deterrent
effect.
Unable to seize power via the military, the Arrow Cross turned to the
bottom-up route that fascists across Europe, especially role model Hitler,
had charted. Szálasi promoted mass mobilization, built up paramilitary
formations, and participated in elections (Vago 1975: 354–56, 366–67).
The Arrow Cross indeed achieved a scary success in the parliamentary
elections of 1939, when radical right-wingers together captured about a
quarter of the vote.88 Interestingly, Szálasi’s party won disproportionate
vote shares in the cities (Szöllösi-Janze 1989: 165–73; Berend 1998: 312;
Rady 2014: 267–68), whereas continuing elite control over the peasantry
made them not nearly as successful in the countryside.
Consequently, the conservative establishment became ever more fear-
ful and gripped by “widespread phobia against Szálasi” (Ormos 2007:
278). Bethlen warned against the “agitation” and “revolutionary style of
the Arrow-Cross men” that threatened, in a “revolutionary flood,” to
bring “a declaration of war on the parliamentary system” and constitu-
tionalism. As the conservative stalwart urged the government to “sup-
press any revolutionary activities and demagogy” coming from the fascist
right (reprinted in Szinai and Szücs 1965: 115–16), Horthy’s authoritar-
ian regime fought back against the Arrow Cross upsurge with frequent

87
Observers estimated that 50–90 (!) percent of the army embraced fascism (Szöllösi-Janze
1989: 194–95, 197–99).
88
Nagy-Talavera (1970: 152–54); Janos (1982: 270–71); Szöllösi-Janze (1989: 153–64);
Sakmyster (2006: 231).
 Conclusion 289

prohibitions, constant harassment, and targeted repression.89 Under

trumped-up charges, for instance, they imprisoned Szálasi from 1938 to
1940 (Sakmyster 2006: 212; see also 224, 231, 248–49). Because the
conservative establishment demonstrated its determination to keep the
Arrow Cross out of power (Carsten 1982: 175–80; Payne 1995: 273–76),
fascist mobilization declined in the early 1940s quite rapidly (Szöllösi-
Janze 1989: 129–33, 207–8, 250–53; Ormos 2007: 361).
Yet while conservative elites managed to contain and defeat fascist
challenges coming from above as well as from below, these conflicts
turned Hungary’s competitive authoritarianism ever more autocratic.
Gömbös’ advance introduced more heavy-handed methods of domin-
ation than the electoral manipulation prevailing before, for instance by
centralizing control over the government party. Thereafter, the determin-
ation to cripple the Arrow Cross movement induced Horthy and his aides
to become ever more illiberal and repressive. In late 1940, for instance,
the Regent urged his prime minister “to confront the Arrow-Cross leaders
with the threat that the party will be suppressed if they upset the situation,
and the leaders stood against the wall [to be executed] . . . Energetic action
must be introduced by proclaiming martial law” (reprinted in Szinai and
Szücs 1965: 152; see Szöllösi-Janze 1989: 257). Thus, fascist initiatives
first brought and then provoked a hardening of Hungary’s non-
democracy, which by the late 1930s turned into a full-scale dictatorship.
Once again, even where fascism lost the political struggle, the conse-
quences for liberty were dire.


The preceding case studies explain why fascism did not spread nearly as
far as its ample normative appeal suggested. Outside Germany, this new
regime type proliferated only under the coercive umbrella of the
Wehrmacht during WWII. Most conservatives, even Duce admirers, pre-
ferred non-mobilizational authoritarianism to fascism’s dynamic totali-
tarianism. In the less-developed countries of Eastern and Southern Europe
and Latin America, these establishment sectors commanded preponderant
power capabilities, whereas fascist movements usually remained small
and weak or achieved only short-term upsurges that were decisively
repressed.

89
Nagy-Talavera (1970: 120–21, 127–29, 134–38, 142, 151, 155, 159–60, 163–64);
Szöllösi-Janze (1989: 109, 111, 115, 120–21, 124, 148, 198, 252, 257).
290 Conservative–Fascist Relations

Obviously, then, fascism’s missionary ideology did not carry over-

whelming force and propel direct emulation. Fascism’s attraction did
not push aside the ideological and interest-based reservations of powerful
conservative groupings. Rulers, politicians, and common citizens did not
feel irresistibly compelled to join an extreme-right bandwagon. Instead,
they assessed fascism’s fit with their own convictions and goals. Elites, in
particular, evaluated the new model’s usefulness for dealing with the
challenges confronting them and assessed its contributions to their own
political interests. Their elitist preferences and predominantly conserva-
tive attitudes made them reject the wholesale emulation of Mussolini’s
innovation; instead, they opportunistically picked and chose from the
fascist tool kit.
Although the interwar reverse wave was not at all a riptide of fascism,
the novel ideology powerfully affected the proliferation of autocracy.
After all, in countries such as Brazil, Portugal, and Spain, conservative
leaders used fascist movements to impose or harden their own authoritar-
ian rule. Moreover, in Estonia, Austria, and Romania, establishment
sectors overthrew deficient democracies to prevent domestic fascist move-
ments from seizing power; rising fascism thus provoked the imposition of
authoritarianism. Consequently, the double deterrent effect highlighted in
this book prompted the installation of conservative dictatorships not only
as a safeguard against the radical left but also the radical right.
Thus, fascism’s rise damaged liberalism and democracy not only where
the new regime type found direct imitation, as in the exceptional case of
Germany. Instead, noxious effects also prevailed where fascist movements
helped conservative sectors establish authoritarian regimes and where
they seemed close to taking power – a risk that established elites fore-
stalled by imposing exclusionary, hierarchical autocracy. In many coun-
tries, therefore, the obstacles to fascism’s diffusion did not bolster liberal
democracy, but contributed to the installation or hardening of authori-
tarianism. After all, in “backward” Eastern and Southern Europe and
Latin America, fascists’ strongest opponents were conservative elites –
who did not defend democracy, but imposed or fortified traditional
dictatorships (Linz 2002: 29, 43, 52, 64–69). Thus, although fascism as
a full-scale regime rarely spread, the proliferation of fascist movements
contributed mightily to democracy’s downfall and the authoritarian
groundswell of the interwar years.
 9

The Edges of the Autocratic Wave: Battered

Democracy and Populist Authoritarianism

The preceding chapter demonstrated how in many countries, conservative

elites imposed authoritarian regimes and kept fascist movements under
control, often with considerable repression. Thus, during the interwar
years, hierarchical, exclusionary authoritarianism often blocked the
establishment of fascist totalitarianism. Indeed, preemptive coups
occurred where radical-right challengers seemed to have a realistic chance
of seizing power.
But as indicated throughout this study, the reverse wave of the 1920s
and 1930s was unusually complex. The autocratic riptide produced
diverse undercurrents and ripples and varied in its destructive effects.
Moreover, democracy did not collapse uniformly under the anti-
communist assault of authoritarianism and fascism; instead, liberal plur-
alism survived in a number of countries or, occasionally, fell to other
problems. Above all, Northern and Western Europe preserved democracy
(until the German conquests of WWII). Modern societies, fairly well-
organized political parties, strong liberal legacies, and reasonably secure
nationhood, together with victory in WWI, kept fascist movements weak.
In most of these settings, extreme right-wingers never seriously threatened
democracy, which maintained resilience and consolidation. The extant
scholarly literature has convincingly explained democratic survival in
these nations (Luebbert 1991; recently Cornell, Møller, and Skaaning
2017, 2020; see also Svolik 2015).
More interesting for this study than these immune democracies are
cases where strong fascist movements did emerge and make real bids for
power, yet conservative elites lacked the clout or motivation to block their
takeover by imposing de-mobilizational authoritarianism; instead,

291
292 The Edges of the Autocratic Wave

through a variety of counter-measures, liberal and democratic forces

managed to preserve democracy. Consequently, democracy persisted in
Finland, France, and Czechoslovakia, however battered or bruised
(Capoccia 2005). And just as the democratic breakdowns examined in
Chapter 8 followed diverse paths, so its survival in this disparate set of
countries – old and new; industrialized or strongly rural; ethnically
homogeneous or heterogeneous – resulted from different sources
of strength.
The most dramatic case of a near-death experience occurred in
Finland, where memories of the bloody civil war of 1918 and perceptions
of a resurging far-left threat spurred mushrooming fascist-leaning mobil-
ization from 1929 onward. Yet whereas a few years later a strikingly
parallel development in culturally and politically similar Estonia (cf. De
Meur and Berg-Schlosser 1996: 455, 462) provoked a preemptive coup
by conservative elites,1 in Finland the hard-pressed democracy narrowly
escaped a breakdown by proving responsive to extreme-right demands.
By eliminating all remaining communist threats, the mainstream parties
proved their defensive capacity, deflated the fascist challenge, and secured
conservative support for political liberalism. When the extreme right
nevertheless attempted a forceful power grab, its isolation from main-
stream conservatives condemned it to failure. As a result, Finland man-
aged to maintain democracy – an unusual success in an unlikely setting
(cf. De Meur and Berg-Schlosser 1996: 438).
France also faced significant far-right challenges, both in the mid-
1920s and the mid- to late 1930s. After all, the democracy instituted in
the 1870s suffered from deep ideological divisions that had caused several
revolutionary uprisings as well as strong reactionary reflexes during the
nineteenth century. No wonder, then, that in response to occasional leftist
advances, radical-right movements temporarily flourished during the
interwar years. Their division and the organizational capacities of demo-
cratic parties and a vibrant civil society limited their appeal, however.
And as left-wing radicalization was kept in check, right-wing radicaliza-
tion also leveled off. Though damaged by frequent conflict, French dem-
ocracy therefore survived fascist challenges.
Czechoslovakia, a new country of great ethnic diversity, achieved
surprising democratic resilience. The numerical strength of the Czech
population and its parties’ capacity to gain support and alliance partners

1
For a comparative analysis of regime developments in Finland and the Baltic states, see
Readman (2007: 286–89).
 The Edges of the Autocratic Wave 293

from the Slovak and German minorities allowed for the creation of a
fairly stable majority coalition, which ensured governability throughout
the 1920s and 1930s. A strong impetus for cross-party cooperation arose
from the country’s precarious international position, wedged between
Germany and Austria and with a numerically substantial, discriminated,
and discontented German-speaking minority concentrated along the
borders. Indeed, encircled Czechoslovakia maintained democracy in part
to retain the support of democratic great powers, especially France. The
ruling party coalition managed to keep communist challenges at bay
during the 1920s and cope with an increasingly radical-right, Nazi-influ-
enced German movement during the mid-1930s. Given its international
weakness, however, Czechoslovak democracy fell to Hitler’s assault in
1938/39.
In various ways, thus, Finland, France, and Czechoslovakia managed
to deal with extremist threats from the left and the right and preserve
liberal democracy despite considerable turbulence. This resilience in the
face of economic crisis (the Great Depression), longstanding ideological
divisions (France), the legacies of recent civil war (Finland), and serious
ethnic tensions (Czechoslovakia) is remarkable. The success of these
“challenged survivors” (Capoccia 2005: 7) demonstrates the limited draw
of fascism and authoritarianism even during an era that proved so dan-
gerous for democracy.
While these democracies averted fascist challenges based on their
domestic strengths, Argentina avoided fascism due to a change in global
parameters. In the Southern Cone nation, a delayed move toward fascism
ran afoul of fascism’s international defeat in WWII. Mussolini admirer
Juan Perón adjusted to the catastrophic downfall and worldwide delegi-
timation of right-wing totalitarianism by moderating his emulation pro-
ject and embracing ideologically diffuse populism instead, which found
broad popular resonance (Germani 1978; Finchelstein 2017). As his
mobilizational success soon allowed this ambitious leader to achieve
political hegemony, he moved toward competitive authoritarianism.
Thus, Perón broke the patterns of the interwar years, when authoritarian-
ism arose from top-down imposition and coups, whereas bottom-up mass
mobilization brought fascism. With his innovation, Perón himself turned
into a model for Latin America’s populists (Finchelstein 2017).
This chapter examines first the three challenged democracies, in des-
cending order of similarity with the cases analyzed in Chapter 8.
Consequently, the discussion starts with Finland’s narrow escape, turns
to France’s struggles with far-right movements, and then to
294 The Edges of the Autocratic Wave

Czechoslovakia’s surprising stability. The last subsection analyzes

Argentina’s exogenously driven avoidance of fascism and embrace of
populism.

    

Finland: The Failure – or Partial Success? – of Fascist Mobilization

The communist threat’s importance as the most basic impulse for the
interwar reverse wave becomes clear in Finland, which narrowly avoided
autocracy in the early 1930s. In this country, where the trauma of a
bloody civil war and the close-by Soviet Union gave the Bolshevist danger
particular salience, democracy proved capable of definitively forestalling
left-wing revolution. Communism’s successful suppression drained sup-
port from a burgeoning fascist movement and induced conservative forces
to side with democratic parties, which forged a broad coalition and thus
safeguarded democracy. As broad-based, relatively well-organized parties
demonstrated their capacity for problem-solving and ensured governabil-
ity, radical-right demands for autocracy weakened (Siaroff 1999:
112–13).
Democracy’s survival is noteworthy because Finland looked like a
“most likely case” for a breakdown (Siaroff 1999: 107, 113–14;
Karvonen 2000: 129, 151–52). Pushing for independence after a century
of Russian dominance, this new country immediately slid into a ferocious
civil war. As Chapter 3 discussed, radical socialists inspired by Lenin’s
Bolshevists imposed their control on the main urban areas for three
months, before the vengeful assault of “white” units crushed their reign
and inflicted even worse terror. Deep wounds kept festering thereafter.
Nevertheless, despite legal obstacles and prohibitions, communists
backed by the Soviet Union energetically agitated and organized in
semi-clandestine ways (Hodgson 1967: chap. 5). They fought an uphill
battle because much of the population despised them as agents of world
revolution and Russian imperialism. Moreover, the socialists, who had
sided with them in the civil war, reoriented during the 1920s, fully
embraced liberal democracy, and joined the fold of Scandinavian Social
Democracy.2

2
Raun (1987: 13) highlights Finland’s strong orientation toward Scandinavia,
especially Sweden.
 Democratic Survival despite Serious Threats 295

Yet although the communists did not have a realistic chance of taking
power, conservative and right-wing sectors traumatized by the purgatory
of temporary “red” rule continued to overrate this menace. During the
1920s, therefore, Finnish governments employed repressive measures to
combat any revolutionary stirrings (Capoccia 2005: 145–53).
Communist organizing proved hard to extinguish, however, and the labor
movement saw a radical-left resurgence in the late 1920s (Kalela 1976:
105, 111; Karvonen 2000: 144–45, 152). In this context, a deliberate
communist provocation in 1929 triggered the spontaneous emergence of
an extreme-right mass movement (Siaroff 1999: 117–18; see also
Hodgson 1967: 135–36), which quickly spread from a remote rural area
to engulf the whole country. This fascist-leaning Lapua movement
insisted on the complete extirpation of communism and combated any
traces of revolutionary threat through a good deal of violence.3 Under the
massive pressure of the radical right, conservative forces also hardened
their stance. Announcing a “March on Helsinki” in 1930, an obvious
imitation of Mussolini’s power grab (Alapuro and Allardt 1978: 132), the
Lapua movement managed to push for a slew of additional anti-
communist measures. In response, the besieged government and parlia-
ment bent the rule of law to close any remaining space for radical leftism
and definitively preclude revolution with a range of stringent prohibitions
and restrictions (Capoccia 2005: 157–62).
Yet ironically, the Lapua movement’s success in effectively achieving
its central anti-communist goal ushered in its decline and saved Finnish
democracy from impending destruction (Kalela 1976: 115–20; Carsten
1982: 167–68; Alapuro 1988: 209–10, 214, 217; Karvonen 2000:
148–53; Kirby 2014: 143–44, 148). As democracy managed to resolve
the supposed problem, why abolish this regime? Conservatives who had
supported the extreme right in its fight against communism therefore
distanced themselves from the fascists after this victory (Capoccia 2005:
139–40, 163–65). They were unwilling to help this impetuous, uncontrol-
lable popular movement take national power and institute a mobiliza-
tional dictatorship that could well jeopardize the elite interest of
maintaining a hierarchical sociopolitical order. Thus, the important div-
ision between radical-right plebeian forces and more moderate,

3
As a radical-right protest movement without an outstanding charismatic leader and a
broader ideological vision (Kirby 2014: 145–49), the Lapua movement constitutes a
borderline case of fascism; however, after its political defeat and decline in 1932, its
hardliners formed a true fascist party (Alapuro and Allardt 1978: 135).
296 The Edges of the Autocratic Wave

traditional, and exclusionary conservatives, which seriously hindered

fascism’s spread during the interwar years, prevented the downfall of
Finnish democracy during this critical juncture. Because this regime dem-
onstrated its ability to suppress a perceived threat, pivotal sectors found
its replacement unnecessary and inadvisable (Alapuro and Allardt 1978:
130–33, 137–39). After all conceivable danger had passed, there was no
reason to abandon liberty and submit to an unaccountable, arbitrary
autocracy.
As the Lapua movement saw the opportunity for capturing the gov-
ernment slip away, it radicalized its strategy and made a desperate
attempt at seizing power through an armed rebellion in early 1932. But
mainstream conservatives joined with centrists and moderate left-wingers
to support the government’s suppression of the extreme-right challengers,
and the army obeyed the civilian leadership (Stover 1977: 748–49). After
this defeat, the Lapua movement was outlawed, and its leaders
imprisoned (Karvonen 2000: 148–49, 154–55). To prevent a recurrence
of such a serious crisis, the democratic government imposed numerous
restrictions on the extreme right and thus hindered its activities (Capoccia
2005: 167–69). These defensive mechanisms helped keep a fully fascist
successor to the Lapua movement confined to the political margins;
therefore, it never managed to endanger democracy (Capoccia 2005:
170–73). Thus, extremist escalation backfired by prompting a defensive
alliance among mainstream parties, which ended up stabilizing Finland’s
shaky democracy.4
In conclusion, because Finland’s democracy with its broad-based,
reasonably well-organized parties proved capable of controlling and then
extinguishing the radical-left threat, a powerful radical-right movement
that arose in response to this menace narrowly failed to overwhelm
democracy and push toward a fascist regime. The success of Finnish
parties in coping with the extreme-right challenge then also took away
any temptation for conservative elites to initiate a preventive coup and
keep the proto-fascists out of power by imposing authoritarian rule. In a
comparative perspective (see Chapter 8), it is noteworthy that the “fathers
of Finnish independence,” Pehr Svinhufvud and Carl Mannerheim, did
not take the route of their Estonian counterpart Konstantin Päts; namely,
installing authoritarianism to keep right-wing extremists out of power
(see Von Rauch 1995: 148–55; Kirby 2014: 147–49). Instead, Finland’s

4
Through a similar centripetal effect, a fascist uprising in 1938 ended up stabilizing a
fledgling democracy in faraway Chile (Sznajder 2001: 583–85, 591–92).
 Democratic Survival despite Serious Threats 297

battle-tested democracy escaped the risks posed by both currents of the

political right, namely radical fascists as well as conservative elites with
(potentially) authoritarian leanings. After democracy emerged from a
radical-left challenge in the late 1910s, it also escaped from a radical-
right challenge in the early 1930s.

France: The Limits of Fascist Mobilization

As Finland’s new, violence-scarred democracy survived the menace of a
massive fascist-leaning movement, so France’s longstanding democracy,
which had withstood earlier bouts of ideological polarization and reac-
tionary challenges, managed to cope with a series of significant fascist
groupings and radical-right parties as well. One of Europe’s oldest dem-
ocracies, the Third Republic instituted in the 1870s – after the Paris
Commune and civic strife as brutal as Finland’s – eventually overcame
its rocky start and gradually achieved consolidation (Engels 2007: 19–30;
Hanson 2010: 1034–53). The legacies of ideological conflict, which had
originated during the French Revolution after 1789, prompted important
right-wing surges, as in the Dreyfus Affair that erupted during the 1890s.
But a vocal and vibrant civil society in this modern, politically sophisti-
cated country provided determined and eventually successful responses
(Engels 2007: 75–92). Nevertheless, by some major accounts (Nolte
[1963] 1979: 61–67, 90–190; Sternhell 1986, 1994), France was the
birthplace of (proto-)fascism. After all, Georges Sorel’s ([1908] 1999)
theories of myth and violence strongly influenced Mussolini (Sternhell
1994: 199–206), and Charles Maurras’s reactionary Action Française
served as an inspiration and model for radical-right movements across
the world, especially in the “Latin” countries of South America and
Southern Europe, including Romania (e.g., Moţa and Marin
[1923–1937] 2019: 35, 46).
In this ideologically divided and conflictual polity, which according to
contemporary scholarly observers “live[d] in a state of perpetual civil
war” (Benda 1935: 293) and “in permanent danger of a revolution” from
the radical right or the radical left (Loewenstein 1935b: 771), several
fascist-leaning movements arose during the 1920s and 1930s (see espe-
cially Soucy 1986, 1995). While emerging from longstanding reactionary
roots, this radical-right efflorescence came as a surprise to many obser-
vers. Indeed, France did not share important risk factors that propelled
the emergence of right-wing extremism elsewhere (Loewenstein 1935b:
770–71). After all, this old nation state had an ethnically homogenized
298 The Edges of the Autocratic Wave

citizenry and a democracy that by any standard counted as consolidated.

Moreover, as a WWI winner, France did not harbor the traumatized
nationalism that drove many Germans and Austrians into the arms of
National Socialism. And because the Gallic state was much stronger than
Italy’s (Paxton 2005: 72–73), it avoided the widespread labor contention
and leftist turmoil that allowed Mussolini’s fascists to win support by
brutally restoring “order.” Last but not least, the Great Depression hit
France less hard than many other countries, limiting the upsurge of
discontent that helped propel the wave of fascist movements in the 1930s.
Yet even in this infertile terrain, several fascist movements were formed.
While never unified under a single supreme leader, together they won
hundreds of thousands of members, followers, and voters, up to a million
in 1938 (Austin 1990: 186, 189; Soucy 1995: 114, 242; Wirsching 1999:
480, 484, 495). Indeed, Benda (1935: 286, 289) regarded French fascism as
“really dangerous to democracy” and highlighted that its “onslaught has
enjoyed a distinct success with the younger generation.” Thus, France was
not as “allergic to fascism” (cf. Dobry 2011; Kestel 2014) as the country
liked to believe after the catastrophe caused by the German Nazi regime
(Tumblety 2009: 507–8; see also Wirsching 1999: 507–13). Instead, right-
wing extremism found substantial support, which eventually fed into the
vicious Vichy regime installed under Nazi tutelage (Nord 2015), especially
from 1942 onward (Austin 1990: 194–96).
Fascist movements appeared in two waves, during the mid-1920s and
the mid- to late 1930s. Directly or indirectly, this clustering was influ-
enced by Mussolini’s takeover in Italy and the Nazi Machtergreifung in
Germany. The main radical-right leader of the 1920s, Georges Valois,
was very impressed by a personal encounter with the Duce, seemed to
“regard himself as a possible French Mussolini” (Levey 1973: 285), called
his own movement the Faisceau des Combattants et des Producteurs, and
prepared a political-paramilitary coup modeled on the March on Rome
(Levey 1973: 294–97). Mussolini also held strong appeal for the new crop
of fascist movements emerging in the 1930s (Soucy 1995: 80–84, 116–17,
140–42, 217), whereas Hitler’s influence was more ambivalent. While the
Nazi leader’s political triumph served as an inspiration, his aggressive
foreign policies posed a growing threat; but interestingly, even this
looming danger provided an impulse for right-wingers by creating the
apparent need to replace a weak and hapless democracy with a much
stronger, totalitarian regime (Soucy 1995: 81–84, 139–43, 217–18,
222–23, 315–17; Berman 2019: 179–80). The Italian and German prece-
dents thus provided various kinds of impulses for fascism’s rise in France.
 Democratic Survival despite Serious Threats 299

Stronger than these inspirational influences, however, were the deter-

rent effects of “communism,” in line with this book’s backlash argument.
The two waves of French fascism were direct reactions to a temporary
strengthening of the left (Wirsching 1999: 274, 280–98, 467, 475–80;
Paxton 2005: 68–69; Engels 2007: 196–99). When, in 1924 and 1932,
left-wing party alliances won elections, conservatives came to feel
threatened, and extreme right-wingers feared communism. In response,
leaders inspired by Mussolini (Soucy 1986: 18–24, 89, 92, 163–64,
211–12; Soucy 1995: 116–17, 140–41) founded fascist movements and
paramilitary formations (Soucy 1986: 20. 27, 39, 87, 219; Soucy 1995:
27, 107, 313–14). Yet the first upsurge during the 1920s remained
episodic. As soon as the left-wing coalition fell apart and conservative
forces regained government power in 1926, these reactionary groupings
quickly declined as well (Levey 1973: 296–97; Soucy 1986: 185–89, 217;
Wirsching 1999: 298).
During the 1930s, this sequence of left-wing action and right-wing
reaction recurred, yet the fascist challenge turned more dangerous and
lingered longer. The recreation of a leftist party alliance in 1932 again
triggered right-wing counter-mobilization, which culminated in a mas-
sive, yet spontaneous and confused assault on parliament in February
1934 (Jenkins 2006). This outburst of contention, unexpected even by the
leaders of reactionary groupings, was spearheaded by a heterogeneous
congeries of forces, comprising extreme right-wingers, a veterans’ move-
ment, and the Communist Party; it did not constitute a coordinated,
planned coup attempt (Austin 1990: 177; Soucy 1995: 29–33, 107–11;
Wirsching 1999: 473). Leaderless and heterogeneous, it emerged from the
exceptional confluence of democracy’s ideological enemies and a fluid
mass of protesters incensed by a recent fraud scandal, as an establishment
politician claimed (Herriot 1934: 604–6). Immediate and effective coun-
termeasures by France’s democratic parties, starting with the replacement
of a center-left governing coalition by a center-right alliance (Raithel
2017: 231), prevented a recurrence of such a drastic street assault on
major government institutions (Wirsching 1999: 604–9).
The radical-right backlash was even stronger and more sustained from
1936 onward, when a “Popular Front” including the socialists and com-
munists won elections, embarked on a social reform program, and
unleashed an unprecedented wave of strikes (Austin 1990: 182–93;
Soucy 1995: 33–36, 115–19, 175, 204, 242). The scary fact that in
neighboring Spain a much more radical Popular Front government had
initiated apparently revolutionary transformations in early 1936 (cf.
300 The Edges of the Autocratic Wave

Payne 2006: 291–93), and that the resulting polarization had prompted a
right-wing coup and bloody civil war, intensified concerns in France and
gave an additional impetus to fascist organizing (Soucy 1995: 35,
116–17; Kennedy 2014: 189). Because in France, “the right viewed the
Popular Front as the coming of the apocalypse” (Berman 2019: 181),
fascist groupings prospered in 1936 and 1937. But the quick dissolution
of the Popular Front soon ushered in a downswing; and the compara-
tively limited reform projects that the French left had in fact pushed kept
the fascist backlash from turning into open, violent counterrevolution
(Engels 2007: 200–4; Tumblety 2009: 508, 517–18; Kennedy 2014:
183, 188–89).
Yet the gradual strengthening of the left that had spawned the Popular
Front; the unprecedented inclusion of the communists in the governing
alliance; and the traumatic experience of that government for many estab-
lishment sectors prevented a dissipation of the radical right, as had happened
in the 1920s. Instead, fascist groupings retained a good share of their
supporters, which in 1936/37 had numbered in the hundreds of thousands
(Soucy 1995: 35–36, 114–19). As the radical right formed parties and
entered elections, it turned into a significant player in French politics, indu-
cing a stark rightward shift among some established politicians and parties
as well (Jenkins 2006: 345–46, 349–51). In line with these tendencies, and in
response to the greater polarization of French politics, the center-right
government replacing the Popular Front in 1938 increasingly governed with
the help of delegated powers and enabling laws (Raithel 2017: 234,
239–41). Thus, French democracy suffered executive power concentration
and parliamentary erosion, slowly moving in the direction charted by the
Brüning government during the penultimate phase of the Weimar Republic.
Yet despite this worrisome democratic backsliding, a far-right takeover
in Paris was not in sight. Instead, conservative and centrist control of the
government limited the draw of fascist mobilization from 1938 onward
(Soucy 1995: 242). Moreover, as the perceived leftist threat eased with the
rapid dissolution of the Popular Front, the existing extreme-right group-
ings lacked the urge to unify for the sake of defense. Because no single
leader managed to achieve charismatic supremacy (Benda 1935: 294;
Loewenstein 1935b: 772; Soucy 1995: 247, 318–19), France’s right-wing
radicalism remained organizationally fragmented. For these reasons, fas-
cists had no realistic chance of seizing power along the Seine. During the
late 1930s, they did not pose an acute threat to democratic survival. The
Vichy regime arose out of France’s initial defeat in WWII, not from
domestic developments. This autocratic regime did feed on the hollowing
 Democratic Survival despite Serious Threats 301

out of liberal democracy during the late 1930s, however, and it ended up
recruiting heavily from the far-right milieu that had emerged in the
preceding decade (Austin 1990: 194–96; Nord 2015).
In sum, the travails of France’s democracy during the 1920s and 1930s
corroborate the direct impact of perceived left-wing challenges on right-
wing reactions that this book highlights. After all, French fascists
“regarded Marxism as the number one threat to the nation” (Soucy
1995: 175). As in so many other countries, anti-communism thus pro-
vided the basic impulse for the emergence of the extreme right (Austin
1990: 179, 184–87). But in France, counterrevolutionary reflexes and
fascist tendencies were fettered by the party system. The fragmentation
of left-wing forces made threats episodic (Raithel 2017: 234, 237) and
thus reduced the perceived need for reactionary countermeasures.
Moreover, democratic parties, which commanded considerable strength
in this modern, liberal society and longstanding democracy, demonstrated
significant though diminishing capacities for response, most clearly in the
crisis of early 1934. For these reasons, liberal pluralism in France with-
stood the regional wave of autocracy, albeit with painful bruises.

Czechoslovakia: Late Fascist Mobilization against a Solid Castle

While in France a consolidated democracy in an old, ethnically homogen-
ized nation state survived significant far-right challenges, in
Czechoslovakia a fledgling democracy in a new, ethnically heterogeneous
country displayed a surprising capacity to avoid or marginalize problems
from the far left and the far right for many years. Indeed, even when
facing a growing, externally inspired and supported challenge from the
ever more fascist Sudetendeutschen movement (Cornwall 2014), the
regime headquartered in the Prague Castle (cf. Orzoff 2009) managed
to persist for years, falling only to Nazi Germany’s overwhelming power.
This striking democratic resilience despite the regional wave of autoc-
racy, which from 1933 onward encircled this lonely outpost of political
liberalism in Central and Eastern Europe, resulted from general causes
and special factors. As regards causes that commonly favor democracy
(cf. Berg-Schlosser and Mitchell 2000: 19; Cornell, Møller, and Skaaning
2020: chap. 4), the country’s Czech core, Bohemia and Moravia, was
highly industrialized, urbanized, and quite modern;5 this advanced

5
Rothschild (1974: 76, 86–87, 91–92, 134); De Meur and Berg-Schlosser (1996: 433, 453,
462); Berend (1998: 20–22).
302 The Edges of the Autocratic Wave

development contrasted starkly with the “backward” countries of Eastern

Europe (cf. Janos 1982), which uniformly succumbed to dictatorship.
Correspondingly, Czechoslovak parties had a programmatic orientation
and represented societal interests (Rothschild 1974: 95–98; Campbell
1977: 158–64), rather than relying mainly on clientelism or serving as
personal vehicles for leading politicians. Combined with a rather firm
internal organization (Rothschild 1974: 94; Campbell 1977: 167), these
characteristics allowed for coalition formation, which ensured reasonable
governability. An educated public and a vibrant civil society sustained this
pro-democratic party system.
While resting on these general causes, Czechoslovakia’s governing coali-
tions were reinforced by special factors, both domestic and international.
First, facing a strong and unhappy German minority, Czech politicians had
powerful incentives to maintain political cohesion and to reach out to their
Slovak colleagues. Indeed, they pursued a nation-building project designed
to forge Czechs, slightly less than half the country’s population, and
Slovaks, another 16 percent, into a single predominant grouping (Berend
1998: 163–68, 190–92; Connelly 2020: 344–49). For this purpose, gov-
ernments relied on the backing of Czech parties and sought support from
their Slovak counterparts. Thus, Czechoslovakia’s specific ethnic alignment
prompted efforts to create a Slavic majority block formed by a five-party
coalition called Pĕtka (Mamatey 1973: 108–10, 126–42; Rothschild 1974:
103–6), which gave the new democracy a solid organizational foundation.
Once this forceful nation-building effort had advanced for years
through preferential treatment for Czechoslovaks and the systematic
marginalization of German-speakers (Rothschild 1974: 92–93, 104;
Kopstein and Wittenberg 2010: 1098–99; Connelly 2020: 338, 347,
353, 359–60), political realism allowed for some bridge building across
this ethnic gulf. After all, ideological differences increased among
Czechoslovak parties as the political agenda moved beyond nation-
building. Parts of the German population, in turn, resigned themselves
to their minority status and sought to pursue their interests by seeking
negotiation and compromise (Mamatey 1973: 109–10; Rothschild 1974:
81–82). These shifts in issue salience, away from ethnicity and toward
program and ideology, allowed for a new majority alliance to form in
1926, which included agrarian and Christian-democratic parties repre-
senting Sudetendeutsche (Rothschild 1974: 110–12; Campbell 1977: 165;
Bradley 2000: 100–1). This important realignment, which overcame an
impending crisis of governability (Kopstein and Wittenberg 2010:
1102–5), was crucial for safeguarding democracy.
 Democratic Survival despite Serious Threats 303

Second, Czechoslovakia’s problematic international environment also

fostered the maintenance of liberal pluralism. The core regions of
Bohemia and Moravia were surrounded by mutilated Austria and revi-
sionist great power Germany, and their border areas harbored a strong
German minority that initially sought incorporation into Austria and
broader fusion (Anschluß) with Germany. Thus, “Czechoslovakia’s inter-
national position made it a vulnerable victor” of WWI (Orzoff 2009:
136). This dangerous situation induced the Czechoslovak parties to
maintain their governing coalition; “external crisis” prompted “internal
compromise” (Bradley 2000; see also Mamatey 1973: 129; Connelly
2020: 382, 411). Moreover, the country’s leadership zealously sought
support from the West’s democratic great powers, which it found espe-
cially by allying with Germany’s main adversary, France (Rothschild
1974: 80; Bradley 2000: 102; Orzoff 2009: 137–45). As a condition, this
international protector, a motherland of political liberalism and among
the oldest democracies in Europe, demanded the preservation of liberal
democracy in Czechoslovakia.
Indeed, the urge to win Western backing had long induced important
Czech politicians to depict their country as inherently committed to
pluralism, tolerance, and popular sovereignty. While a combination of
fact and fiction, this systematically constructed and eagerly promoted
“myth of the Castle” – meaning both Prague’s castle, seat of the presi-
dency, and the whole country as a fortress of democracy during the
turbulent 1920s and 1930s (Orzoff 2009) – precluded any clear moves
toward autocracy, such as the coup that Józef Piłsudski spearheaded
during the crisis year of 1926 in Poland (cf. Kopstein and Wittenberg
2010: 1105–6). In sum, Czechoslovakia’s endangered international pos-
ition provided another impulse for the preservation of liberal pluralism.
Based on this unusual combination of strengths, Czechoslovak democ-
racy showed remarkable resilience throughout the interwar years, by
contrast to the rest of Central and Eastern Europe. In the 1920s, the
fledgling regime survived significant challenges from the radical left,
including a communist attempt at rebellion in 1920 and additional far-
left stirrings in 1926 (Mamatey 1973: 104–6; Rothschild 1974: 104–5;
Bradley 2000: 93–94, 100; Capoccia 2005: 74). Interestingly, the
governing party coalition felt so firmly in the saddle that it did not outlaw
Lenin’s contentious disciples, but left them free rein, which allowed the
aspiring world revolutionaries to win 10–15 percent of the vote through-
out the 1920s and 1930s. This persistent but limited radical challenge
provided another reason for the governing party alliance to retain its
304 The Edges of the Autocratic Wave

cohesion, thus inadvertently bolstering democracy’s survival (Campbell

1977: 159–60).
For years, a similar effect emanated from the re-inflammation of the
Sudetendeutschen conflict and that minority’s increasing move toward
fascism from 1933 onward (Rothschild 1974: 127–30; Cornwall 2007,
2014). This challenge, strongly inspired by Hitler’s triumph across the
border and by the quick recovery in Germany’s international strength
(Capoccia 2005: 77–81), induced even greater determination among the
Czechoslovak parties to sustain their cooperation and thus guarantee
continued governability (Campbell 1977: 159). Based on their political-
organizational strength and backed by France’s support, the governing
coalition parties combated the growing threat from the radical right more
forcefully than they had responded to the radical left. Whereas the
Moscow-steered Communists remained free to operate during the 1920s
and 1930s, extremist Sudeten groupings faced an increasing set of prohib-
itions and limitations (Capoccia 2005: 82–98).
The government’s heavy-handedness helped to dissuade this discon-
tented segment from frontally challenging the regime and state. Instead,
the main Sudeten party chose the electoral route (Cornwall 2014: 214) –
and shockingly won the highest vote share of any party in 1935. As it was
ethnically based, however, this extreme-right party faced a low support
ceiling. Because it would therefore be unable to use elections for seizing
power, Czechoslovakia’s political establishment saw no need to close
down democracy through a preemptive self-coup, as happened in
Austria, Estonia, and Romania (see Chapter 8). Yet while the German
minority’s radicalization did not lead to the destruction of Czechoslovak
democracy from the inside, it provided the main pretext for Hitler to
pursue his expansionary international goals, which in 1938/39 neither the
comparatively strong Czechoslovak army (Rothschild 1974: 131–32) nor
the Western powers were willing to resist with the force of arms. In the
end, thus, the Castle fell to a foreign assault.
In sum, building on the strong foundations of a modern society and a
fairly well-organized and programmatic (albeit fragmented) party system,
Czechoslovakia’s democratic leadership managed to turn adversity into
advantage. Significant but limited challenges from the radical left and
from a resentful ethnic minority reinforced the main parties’ determin-
ation to forge and maintain an alliance that guaranteed governability and
democratic stability. Moreover, the country’s precarious international
position, surrounded by Germany and Austria and with many German-
speakers along the border, prompted the quest for protection by Western
 From Fascism to Populism 305

great powers, which required democracy’s preservation. For these

reasons, the Castle (cf. Orzoff 2009) for two long decades withstood the
rising wave of autocracy that swept up one of the country’s neighbors
after the other. In the end, however, the German exception examined in
Chapter 6, namely the installation of full-scale fascism in Central
Europe’s great power, gave rise to overwhelming external pressure that
finally overpowered Czechoslovakia’s exceptional democracy. This late
victim of the interwar reverse wave thus fell to foreign imposition, pro-
viding some evidence for a prominent line of theorizing (cf. Boix 2011;
Gunitsky 2014, 2017).

   :  

 –  
As mentioned throughout this study, outside Italy and Germany the
spread of full-scale fascism occurred only under geopolitical hegemony
or military conquest by the Nazi regime. Because fascist movements in
Eastern Europe were comparatively small and weak, they could not seize
power without great power assistance; and only Hitler’s Germany had the
necessary clout after the late 1930s (Gunitsky 2017: chap. 4).
Accordingly, German predominance helped induce Romania’s dictator
Antonescu to form the National Legionary State with the fascist Iron
Guard in 1940 (Heinen 1986: 38, 421–22). Moreover, German conquest
allowed the bloodthirsty Ustaša in Croatia (Hoare 2009: 420–24;
Trifkovic 2011) and the Arrow Cross movement in Hungary to grab
power, however fleetingly.
The opposite development occurred in Argentina in the mid-1940s:
Fascism’s global defeat in WWII forestalled the emergence of a fascist
regime,6 despite a strong domestic impulse. After all, from mid-1943
onward, Army Colonel Juan Perón, an ardent admirer of Mussolini, used
his increasingly powerful position in a reactionary military regime to
stimulate worker mobilization and union organization. By building a
mass movement, he sought to win power and then institute an energetic,
encompassing autocracy, probably along totalitarian fascist lines.7 With
the collapse of fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in 1944/45, however, the

6
See in general, Griffin (2018: 91–93).
7
Falcoff (1993: 392–94, 398–99) argues based on a long personal interview in 1968 that
Perón’s personal experiences in Italy in 1939/40 reinforced his fascination with fascism
and shaped his political outlook throughout his career.
306 The Edges of the Autocratic Wave

ambitious leader pulled back from this emulation effort and softened his
project to install populist authoritarianism, which lacked the clear ideol-
ogy, penchant for violence, and totalitarian drive of fascism.8 As a perso-
nalistic leader elected in 1946, he used his widespread popular backing to
overpower his adversaries. In this way, he secured his unchallenged pre-
eminence and quickly moved toward competitive authoritarianism.
The populist drive toward authoritarianism enlists mass participation
and popular mobilization like fascist totalitarianism, but forms a regime
that is far less monopolistic, oppressive, and penetrating (Finchelstein
2017). This competitive authoritarianism keeps the opposition off-
balance through discrimination, harassment, and selective repression,
but does not try to destroy it through extensive torture and killings. It
rests primarily on voluntary popular support based on attraction, induce-
ments, and cooptation, rather than on ritualistic acclamation regimented
through coercive command and imposition.
Thus, whereas Germany’s ascendancy in the late 1930s and early
1940s had allowed some comparatively weak fascist movements to take
power and impose fascist regimes, Germany’s cataclysmic defeat and the
global de-legitimation of fascism induced an unusually strong fascist-
leaning movement in Argentina to forego full-scale fascism when captur-
ing and exercising power. After the international balance of power had
temporarily tipped in favor of fascism’s emulation, the “hegemonic
shock” resulting from WWII (Gunitsky 2017: 152–60, 176–96) perman-
ently foreclosed fascism’s further diffusion. Because fascism lost all
appeal, Perón abandoned his initial regime project, relied on populism,
and installed competitive authoritarianism.
Interestingly, Perón’s innovation – populism with inherent tendencies
toward authoritarianism – became an influential model of its own, espe-
cially in Latin America (Finchelstein 2017). Numerous politicians and
rulers took inspiration from the Argentine precedent and tried to emulate
Perón’s mass-mobilizational path to personal predominance and political
hegemony. The Argentine general’s success held special appeal for
(former) military officers ranging from Colombia’s Gustavo Rojas
Pinilla to Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, who used Argentine Peronist
Norberto Ceresole as one of his main early advisers.

8
Whereas Lewis (1980: 256) classified Perón’s populism as fascist, Waldmann (1974:
269–309) and Finchelstein (2017) demonstrate the substantial, qualitative differences
between fascism and populism, including Peronism.
 From Fascism to Populism 307

How, then, did fascism transmute into populism in Argentina? As so

often during the interwar years, the rise of fascist forces originated in fears
of left-wing revolution (Waisman 1987). And once again, these percep-
tions of radical peril were clearly excessive. Certainly, as in many
European countries, a radical challenge had erupted in the aftermath of
the Bolshevist revolution, namely the massive worker unrest of the “tragic
week” in January 1919. Though quickly and brutally suppressed, this
radical contention left a lasting trauma (Devoto 2005: 127–30). But
Argentina had a moderate Socialist Party (Walter 1977) and a weak
Communist Party, and anarcho-syndicalist stirrings faded in the 1920s.
Realistically speaking, therefore, no danger of revolution existed.
Nevertheless, the continuing domestic concerns and Argentina’s strong
orientation toward Europe gave a variety of right-wing doctrines from
France, fascist Italy, and later Nazi Germany resonance and influence
along the River Plate (Dolkart 1993: 78–79, 87–88, 91; Devoto 2005:
251–53). In the 1920s, therefore, a multitude of nationalist, reactionary,
and radical-right groupings were formed (Rock 1993: chap. 4; Deutsch
1999: 78–86, 90–96, 105–6; Spektorowski 2003; Devoto 2005: chaps.
3–4; Finchelstein 2010: chaps. 2, 4). At that time, however, economic
growth undergirded the political predominance of the democratic Radical
Party, which ensured governability and stability. While strong among
intellectuals, right-wing and fascist ideas therefore found little popular
support (Piñeiro 1997: 70–88; Deutsch 1999: 193).
Yet the Great Depression hit export-dependent Argentina hard and
contributed to democracy’s overthrow in 1930. Military dictator José
Uriburu, inspired by Mussolini’s Italy and supported by Argentina’s
extreme-right intellectuals, sought to institute corporatist authoritarian-
ism (Romero 1968: 229–33; Germani 1978: 171–72; Deutsch 1999:
196–200; Devoto 2005: 290–303; Finchelstein 2010: 68–69;
Finchelstein 2019: 241–43; Pinto 2019a: 114–17; Pinto 2019b: 31–39).
But the lack of an extreme-right mass movement and the failure of
Uriburu’s haphazard and belated efforts to mobilize popular support
impeded this emulation effort. Uriburu’s project foundered on divisions
inside the military, where his corporatist-autocratic wing was no match
for strong conservative and moderately liberal currents (Potash 1969:
43–48, 60–61, 69–74; Deutsch 1999: 199–204; Spektorowski 2003: 64,
83–86, 89–90). After Uriburu’s downfall, Argentina’s political and eco-
nomic elites installed a competitive-authoritarian regime that used elect-
oral manipulation and fraud to engineer victories for oligarchical
politicians.
308 The Edges of the Autocratic Wave

Exclusionary rule during this “infamous decade” (1932–1943), how-

ever, left many citizens dissatisfied, especially workers in Argentina’s
growing industries (Brown 2011: 198–201). In response, the Radical
and Socialist parties joined a coalition with the weak communists, which
was inspired by the Comintern’s Popular Front strategy (Rock 1993:
128–29, 133–35, 139; Halperin Donghi 2003: 53–59, 127–36, 145–52,
206). This electorally powerful opposition alliance, which would come
close to victory in the 1946 contest (Potash 1980: 44–46; Finchelstein
2010: 169), sent shivers down the spine of conservative establishment
forces. The recent experiences of Argentina’s former mother country,
Spain, where the Popular Front victory of 1936 had unleashed a revolu-
tionary upsurge followed by a bloody civil war, activated the representa-
tiveness heuristic and reinforced these threat perceptions (Piñeiro 1997:
113–16, 141–43, 172–73; Halperin Donghi 2003: 57, 101–5, 206). The
exaggerated fears of status-quo forces triggered loss aversion and helped
to prompt a reactionary military coup in mid-1943, which was designed
to block the elections scheduled later that year (Rock 1993: 139–40).
Among the right-wing officers who quickly gained predominance in
the new dictatorship, Juan Perón soon stood out by pursuing an innova-
tive political strategy, namely energetic mass mobilization (Potash 1969:
209–16, 234–42; Walter 1993: 102–7). After all, the ambitious colonel
had witnessed the crucial role of mass support for Mussolini’s fascism
during a lengthy stay in Italy in 1939/40; by contrast, in the early 1930s,
he had seen how the lack of popular backing had foiled Uriburu’s
authoritarian-corporatist project, in which he had initially participated.
Now, in the mid-1940s, Perón noticed that the citizenry’s exclusion
during the “infamous decade” (Waldmann 1974: 50–59) created an
unusual opportunity for a charismatic leader to mobilize large numbers
of people, push aside the manipulative establishment forces, and gain
personal predominance.9
Taking advantage of this political opening,10 Perón eagerly used his
governmental positions to mobilize a fervent mass following (Potash

9
Perón’s turn to the masses antagonized his longstanding allies, the reactionary
Nationalists, who were elitist and preferred hierarchical, exclusionary authoritarianism,
not the populist variant that Perón ended up installing (Rock 1993: 154–55, 173–74;
Piñeiro 1997: 272–75).
10
Interestingly, no significant fascist mass movement had emerged in Argentina during the
1930s. This absence is surprising. After all, Argentina had featured a stronger extreme
right than Brazil and Chile in the 1910s and 1920s (Deutsch 1999: 5, 7, 57, 78, 105,
193), and Brazil saw the comparatively powerful Integralismo movement arise during the
 From Fascism to Populism 309

1969: 227–28, 244–46, 267, 286; Rock 1993: 138–42). The savvy leader
first targeted Argentina’s long-neglected workers, wooed them with gen-
erous socioeconomic benefits, and pushed them into a well-organized
union structure (Germani 1978: 174–85). With his personal magnetism,
appeals to economic nationalism, and advocacy of state-guided develop-
ment, this quickly rising leader also won growing support in the back-
ward regions of Argentina’s interior.
Perón’s novel efforts to mobilize Argentina’s socially excluded workers
also pursued the counterrevolutionary goal of forestalling left-wing rad-
icalism (Waisman 1987: chaps. 6–7). While firmly rooted in the political
right, the ambitious colonel saw the neglect of the “social question” that
emerged with industrialization as a danger to stability and an opportunity
for extreme leftists to garner support (see Perón’s 1944 speech cited in
Brown 2011: 202). Perón’s longstanding fear of “Communism” was
exacerbated by Spain’s recent fate, where deep social problems had
unleashed revolutionary pressures (Finchelstein 2019: 245). After person-
ally witnessing the devastation wrought by the Spanish Civil War during
a visit in the early 1940s, the aspiring leader sought to preempt similar
bottom-up contention in Argentina by alleviating unfulfilled social needs.
In 1944, therefore, “he appealed to the propertied classes to support his
concessions to labor to prevent a Communist revolution. Argentina
resembled pre-civil war Spain, he insisted” (Rock 1993: 151; see also
146–49). Similarly, Perón warned in 1945: “If we fail to carry out a
peaceful revolution, the people will lead a violent revolution” (cited in
Rock 1993: 152). Thus, through its deterrent effect, “communism was
one of the primary causes of Peronism” (Finchelstein 2019: 248). Thus,
Perón’s courting of the popular masses was also designed to safeguard
sociopolitical order.
Perón’s innovative strategy, and its political success, were very
unusual. Few military leaders promote widespread popular mobilization
and organization,11 and those who try regularly fail (Huntington 1968:
233–37, 243–45). After all, the hierarchical, vertical approach of the
armed forces has little affinity with citizen participation; and top-down
efforts do not easily elicit bottom-up involvement. Consequently, even

1930s. On the general reasons for fascism’s relative weakness in Latin America, see
Hennessy (1976: 256–60), and on Argentina, Dolkart (1993: 93–94).
11
As Chapter 8 discussed, Hungary’s Prime Minister Gyula Gömbös (1932–36), a former
military officer, refrained from stimulating mass mobilization, one of the main reasons for
the failure of his plan to transform his country’s conservative authoritarianism into
totalitarian fascism.
310 The Edges of the Autocratic Wave

Peru’s military regime of 1968–75, which benefited many population

sectors with progressive reforms, proved unable to stimulate mass partici-
pation and win reliable backing (Stepan 1978: 182–89, 293–95, 314–15).
By contrast, in two short years, Perón managed to mobilize a wide-
spread, intensely committed mass following by claiming to represent the
long-neglected interests of the working classes and providing ample social
benefits and help in organization building (Waldmann 1974: 181–99;
Germani 1978: 174–85). The savvy colonel realized that Argentina’s
eternally fractious military (Potash 1969: chaps. 1, 8) could not secure
his rule. Instead, he needed a second leg to stand on, namely popular
support, which was important for street contention and crucial for elect-
oral legitimation (Germani 1978: 173). The importance and striking
success of Perón’s novel strategy was demonstrated when, in late 1945,
hundreds of thousands of workers demonstrated and forced their idol’s
liberation from imprisonment by a rival military faction, which had
tried to block the meteoric ascent of whom they saw as the Argentine
version of Mussolini (Potash 1969: 271–82; Germani 1978: 185–89;
Brown 2011: 201–4).
While the regime goals that Perón pursued from 1943 to 1945 are
impossible to ascertain precisely, strong indications suggest that he
would, in principle, have liked to move toward fascism (Germani 1978:
173). After all, during a long sojourn in Italy, he had become fascinated
with Mussolini’s right-wing totalitarianism.12 Moreover, the military
dictatorship that he helped to install in 1943 had a strong pro-Axis
wing.13 As a result, US diplomats saw and depicted Perón as an inveterate
fascist, even after he donned populist sheep’s clothing in the run-up to the
democratic elections of 1946 (Potash 1980: 39–43), in which he clearly
and cleanly defeated the previously mentioned coalition of centrist and
left-wing parties.
Regardless of his underlying convictions and predilections, however,
and despite ample borrowing from fascist labor policies (Spektorowski
2003: 188, 193, 199), the victorious president never tried to institute full-
scale fascism. Although he soon undermined democracy, won reelection
in a tainted, unfair contest in 1951, and created a competitive-
authoritarian regime, he did not subjugate all societal organizations,

12
Falcoff (1993: 392–94); Rock (1993: 145–49, 153); Deutsch (1999: 330–31);
Spektorowski (2003: 188, 193, 199, 245 n. 38); Finchelstein (2017: 22, 165).
13
Potash (1969: 117–20, 184, 196–98). Some officers were strongly pro-Nazi, as expressed
in a strident manifesto cited in Romero (1968: 244–45).
 From Fascism to Populism 311

create a monopolistic totalitarian party, and unleash systematic paramili-

tary violence and widespread police repression. Compared to Mussolini’s
and Hitler’s dictatorships, Perón’s rule was mild, tolerant of considerable
pluralism, and vague in its guiding ideas, rather than based on a strict
ideology. For instance, opposition parties won more than a third of the
vote in 1951, a feat impossible under fascism. For these reasons, Perón’s
regime qualifies as populist authoritarianism, not fascism (see recently
Finchelstein 2017; the classical analysis of Germani 1978; and in general
Linz 2000).
The main reason why Perón settled for populism and competitive
authoritarianism, rather than pushing for full-scale fascism, was the
dramatic turnaround in the global ideological struggle. In 1943, when
the reactionary military junta grabbed power in Argentina, Nazi armies
still occupied large swaths of Europe. After D-Day in mid-1944, however,
the Axis was clearly headed toward defeat; and US pressures on countries
in the Americas, its primary sphere of influence, grew ever stronger.14
Given the impending victory of the Western democracies and collapse of
the fascist model, who would still want to institute right-wing totalitarian-
ism, especially in an export-oriented country dependent on trade with the
West? While Perón was an admirer of Mussolini, he was certainly not a
Don Quixote.
Consequently, Argentina’s aspiring leader transformed the regime
model that he had embraced during fascism’s global ascendancy
(Finchelstein 2017: xiii–xiv, 7–8, 17–24, 98–102, 109–25, 150–52).
Perón abandoned fascist goals and embraced populism,15 which Radical
Party head Hipólito Yrigoyen had pioneered in the 1910s and 1920s. As
the ex-president had drawn his main support from the middle class, Perón
reached further down in the social pyramid by targeting workers and
poorer sectors, whose interests had been neglected during the “infamous
decade” (Germani 1978: 173–74). In this way, Argentina’s new charis-
matic leader built up a strong union movement and a labor-based party.
Relying on this powerful base, the populist colonel did not only defeat the
Radicals and their leftist coalition partners in the free elections of 1946
(Potash 1980: 44–46; Walter 1993: 106–9) but also energetically concen-
trated power and suffocated democracy thereafter (Waldmann 1974:

14
For Argentina, see Potash (1969: 165–69, 221–22, 243, 248, 258); Potash (1980: 1–2,
39); Walter (1993: 104–6); Finchelstein (2010: 167–68); see also Waldmann (1974:
62–71).
15
Germani (1978: 172, 180–81); Finchelstein (2010: 165–70); Finchelstein (2019: 246–47).
312 The Edges of the Autocratic Wave

87–104; Potash 1980: 103–7). As the president gradually and systematic-

ally strangled political liberty, Argentina fell under a populist variant of
authoritarianism (Finchelstein 2017).
Thus, in this unusual case, the reverse wave of the interwar years had a
delayed effect and led to the downfall of democracy only after the end of
WWII. Yet precisely because of this delay, the regime outcome was not
fascist totalitarianism, but populist authoritarianism, a far less oppressive
type of autocracy. As in Eastern Europe and the Balkans during the late
1930s and early 1940s, in Argentina during the 1940s, the international
balance of power shaped the proliferation of fascism, yet in the opposite
direction. Whereas German hegemony had lifted relatively weak fascist
movements into power, the Nazis’ defeat induced an incipient strong
fascist movement to renounce fascism, use a populist strategy to win
power, and institute competitive authoritarianism.


As the autocratic wave of the interwar years arose from a complex
interplay of problems and challenges, and as this massive regime reversal
unfolded in diverse ways and produced different regime outcomes, so the
configurations of factors that allowed some “challenged survivors”
(Capoccia 2005: 7) to preserve democracy were heterogeneous. Some
basic underlying factors clearly mattered, especially the greater modernity
of Czechoslovakia and France. In Finland, the most different and unusual
case of democratic persistence (see De Meur and Berg-Schlosser 1996:
438), the country’s strong gravitation toward more modern Sweden
(Raun 1987: 13) served as somewhat of a functional equivalent.
But specific factors, namely differences in structural conditions, histor-
ical legacies, and actor strategies, also proved important. For instance,
Finland’s democratic parties appeased a surging fascist movement by
forcefully suppressing the perceived communist threat, whereas
Czechoslovakia’s coalition governments long did not face significant
pressures from the radical-right, and therefore allowed a similarly strong
Communist Party free rein. In France, by contrast, the temporary
strengthening of the left, both in the mid-1920s and in the mid- to late
1930s, provoked substantial reactions from the extreme right. But the
quick easing of threats emanating from the fragmented left deflated the
fascist response as quickly in the 1920s and turned it away from direct
assaults and toward party building and electoral mobilization in the late
1930s, which did cause some damage to political liberalism.
 Conclusion 313

As this comparative assessment suggests, underlying these country-

specific developments was the dynamic of left-wing action and right-
wing reaction that this book has highlighted as its most fundamental
theme. Exaggerated fears of radicalism and revolution bred defensive
mobilization and counterrevolution. Yet, whereas this ideological clash
helped bring down so many democracies during the interwar years, in the
three countries surveyed here, democratic parties managed to contain or
disarm their extremist adversaries, avert or limit conflict, and thus pre-
serve liberal pluralism during very turbulent times.
Besides analyzing the limits of the authoritarian and fascist reverse wave
and the survival of battered democracies, this chapter has also examined
the special case of Argentina, where a strong but late fascist impulse was
deflected into populism and electoral authoritarianism. The global defeat
and delegitimation of fascism induced its strong sympathizer Perón not to
follow in Mussolini’s and Hitler’s footsteps. Instead, this ambitious leader
diluted and softened the novel blueprint by using top-down popular mobil-
ization to win an open election, establish political hegemony, and then
move toward competitive authoritarianism. Much less violent, dynamic,
and dictatorial than fascist totalitarianism, the Argentine innovation then
turned into a regime model across Latin America, helping to set in motion a
regional wave of populism ranging from Brazil in the Southern Cone to
Colombia in the continent’s northwest.
 10

Conclusion

As the preceding chapters have documented with a wealth of historical

evidence, the interwar reverse wave arose most fundamentally from a
massive backlash to a dramatic revolutionary challenge, like other such
cascades (Weyland 2019: chaps. 5–6, 8). But this autocratic riptide
unfolded in particularly complex ways because two deterrent effects,
driven by profound fear of revolutionary communism and by serious
concern about counterrevolutionary fascism, were nested inside each
other. First, the Russian Revolution and the rash emulation efforts it
triggered with its world-revolutionary ambitions prompted a powerful
reaction from status-quo defenders, who doubted the resilience of liberal
democracy against the communist threat and who therefore advocated
right-wing autocracy as a protective shield.
Second, and unusually, in this reactionary backlash there was a div-
ision between most established elites, who preferred conservative, top-
down, non-mobilizational authoritarianism, and upstart charismatic
leaders and their fervent, violent mass followers, who spearheaded a
dynamic bottom-up push for mobilizational, fascist totalitarianism.
Interestingly, the resulting tensions and conflicts among the anti-
communist right had a lopsided impact on political regime developments.
Although the interwar years are commonly depicted as the era of fascism,
these totalitarian extremists rarely won the battle among reactionary
sectors. They managed to overpower conservatives only in those new,
unconsolidated democracies that had achieved a higher level of modern-
ization, which weakened traditional elites and opened up space for mass
mobilization, namely Northern Italy and Germany. By contrast, in the
many “backward” countries of Eastern and Southern Europe (cf. Janos

314
 Conclusion 315

1982), the continuing predominance of sociopolitical elites limited fascist

recruitment and enabled establishment forces to control and subjugate, or
to crush and repress rising radical-right movements.
Thus, the double deterrent effect created a fork in the road of regime
developments. A narrow path led to fascist totalitarianism, and a much
broader avenue to conservative authoritarianism. This big difference in
outcomes was unique. By contrast, other reactionary cascades resulted
from straightforward backlash dynamics and led to the same type of
autocracy across whole regions, such as military dictatorships in Latin
America after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 and hardened despotism in
the Middle East after the Iranian Revolution of 1978–79.
This conclusion first summarizes the book’s main argument by discuss-
ing the different aspects of this double deterrent effect. The third section
then turns to the excessive intensity and cruelty of the sociopolitical
struggles motivated by this nested backlash. The historical record showed
that actors of all stripes employed disproportionate violence. As the
micro-foundation of my argument highlights, they deviated from conven-
tional rationality and relied instead on the heuristic shortcuts and asym-
metrical loss aversion documented by cognitive psychology. As left-
wingers were carried away by unrealistic hopes in revolutionary
advances, right-wingers were gripped by excessive fear and therefore
squashed extremist rebellions and other forms of “subversion” with full
force. Moreover, as status-quo defenders lost faith in the defensive cap-
acity of liberal democracy, they embraced dictatorships that unleashed
uncontrollable repression and, in their fascist variants, committed
unspeakable atrocities. Driven by exaggerated threat perceptions, import-
ant sociopolitical forces exposed themselves to tremendous risks. Thus,
political rationality was clearly bounded during the revolutionary
troubles and counterrevolutionary turbulence of the interwar years.
Thereafter, the subsequent section discusses how the tragedy of the
interwar years prompted its own powerful backlash. The catastrophic
downfall of fascism discredited this regime model and precluded its
reemergence during later counterrevolutionary waves, such as the hemi-
spheric reaction to the Cuban Revolution in Latin America. Moreover,
immediately after WWII, this strong deterrent effect brought the uniform
resurgence of liberal democracy where the victorious Western democra-
cies held sway. While the United States and its allies guaranteed re-
democratization in the defeated nations, such as Germany and Italy,
domestic forces also learned from fascism’s tremendous costs and there-
fore tried hard to reconstruct democracy in more sustainable ways. For
316 Conclusion

this purpose, they employed institutional engineering, usually to

good effect.
How does this historic resurrection of democracy hold up before the
political challenges facing the contemporary world, especially the surpris-
ing spread of right-wing populism, even in advanced industrialized coun-
tries, as Donald Trump’s shocking election shows? Is the third millennium
seeing the beginning of a revival of fascism, as a number of observers fear
(Connolly 2017; Stanley 2018; see also Wirsching, Kohler, and Wilhelm
2018)? By drawing conclusions from the preceding analysis, the fifth
section allays these concerns. After all, this book confirms the distinctive-
ness of fascism and its categorical differences from authoritarianism.
Nowadays, projects to install violent totalitarianism guided by a millen-
arian ideological vision are not on the horizon. If concepts are used with
any precision, then observers need not worry about a revival of fascism.
This book has also documented the very special circumstances of inter-
war politics, rocked by an exceptional coincidence of structural problems
and conjunctural crises. The Russian Revolution posed a threat of unique,
world-historical proportions, which provoked the strongest, most dramatic
and wide-ranging backlash in history. The rise of fascism, which then
added fuel to the hellfire (cf. Kershaw 2015), is inexplicable and un-
understandable without this menace from the world-revolutionary left.
Thus, the interwar years constituted the most acute “age of extremes” ever
(Hobsbawm 1996; see also Bracher 1982; Mazower 2000).
None of the issues and difficulties facing the contemporary world
approximates this magnitude, by far. According to the fundamental
principle of physics, “no action – no reaction,” anything resembling the
fear-driven backlash of the 1920s and 1930s, especially the emergence of
violent, dictatorial mass movements, is therefore exceedingly unlikely.
While the limited problems of the early twenty-first century have certainly
given rise to overreactions and resentful excesses (“build the wall!”) – due
again to the bounds of rationality – they are not paving the way for a
resurgence of fascism. Moreover, in the advanced industrialized coun-
tries, where democracy has taken firm roots, a descent into authoritarian-
ism is highly improbable as well. The book therefore ends with reassuring
conclusions that can put worried observers of present-day politics at ease.

       

This book demonstrated in Chapters 3 and 4 that the Russian Revolution,
which opened up a critical juncture of monumental proportions (cf.
 The Dual Backlash Dynamic of the Interwar Years 317

Capoccia and Kelemen 2007), quickly stimulated eager emulation efforts,

yet simultaneously provoked powerful deterrent effects. As Lenin’s dis-
ciples across Europe and other regions jumped to the conclusion that the
world revolution was nigh and eagerly sought to spread the new com-
munist gospel, status-quo defenders often shared this heuristically
inferred belief in the precariousness of the existing order – and therefore
were determined to stamp out left-wing subversion in all its forms. The
Soviet precedent’s attractions for the left thus aggravated threat percep-
tions among the right and center. These fears of the enormous costs
resulting from radical transformations activated asymmetrical loss aver-
sion, which prompted all-out efforts to combat the left and fortify the
established system, with massive coercion in the short run (Chapter 4)
and the imposition of reactionary dictatorship in the medium run
(Chapters 5 through 8). This powerful backlash undermined support for
liberal democracy, widely seen as lacking sufficient armor against revolu-
tionary risks. The novel threat from the left thus strengthened the reac-
tionary right, bringing a substantial shift in political-ideological
orientations that affected regime developments.
Indeed, the first-ever communist revolution caused such a profound
shock that it helped provoke the emergence of a striking counter-model,
namely fascism, as discussed in Chapter 5 (see also Markwick 2009).
While this novel type of reactionary autocracy had forerunners and
ideational roots in the late nineteenth century and while WWI provided
powerful impulses for the extreme right by inflaming nationalism and
brutalizing millions of young men, a decisive additional impetus for
fascism’s rise was its promise of reliable protection against the scary
specter of Lenin’s communism. As Chapter 4 showed, Mussolini gained
influence and soon won power through violent attacks against radical
leftists, who seemed to push Italy to the brink of revolution. With the
subsequent move toward dictatorship and the consolidation of reaction-
ary totalitarianism, the Duce turned fascism into the strongest fortress
against the apparent communist threat.
Yet while fascism emitted enormous ideational, normative, and polit-
ical appeal, as chapter five highlighted, it carried the risk of killing the
patient with an overdose of bitter pills. Fascists saw communism as so
threatening that they sought to combat the left with large-scale violence,
the total concentration of power, and the comprehensive penetration and
control of society. But in the eyes of establishment sectors, this all-out
reaction would overturn existing hierarchies and thus threaten their own
positions as well. After all, conservative politicians, military generals, the
318 Conclusion

clergy, large landowners, and big business would have to cede command
to fascism’s charismatic leaders, who would gain ample latitude for
unaccountable, arbitrary decisions. Although these dangers seemed less
severe than the leveling revolution pursued by Lenin’s disciples, they
fueled serious concerns about fascism as well. Powerful status-quo
defenders therefore tried hard to avoid both the fires of communism
and the frying pan of fascism. Instead, they strongly preferred the hier-
archical stability of exclusionary, elitist authoritarianism.
Therefore, as Chapters 6 to 8 showed by analyzing major episodes of
autocratic regime change (cf. Capoccia and Ziblatt 2010: 940–44), the
interwar reverse wave was shaped by a second backlash effect, nested in
the broader reaction of right-wing counter-diffusion against left-wing
diffusion. While powerful conservative sectors tried at all cost to defeat
the communist virus, they also sought to avoid the overly strong vaccine
of fascism. To maintain their top-down control over politics and society,
they wanted to defend themselves against the bottom-up movements of
the radical left as well as the radical right, though in different ways. While
they cracked down on radical revolutionaries with stern hostility and
often brute force, they tried to defang fascist challengers through coopta-
tion, divide-and-rule tactics or, as a last resort, coercion. Thus, despite
basic ideological affinities with the radical right, they were prepared to
employ all means at their disposal, as the Iron Guard’s cruel repression in
Romania shows (Chapter 8).
In fact, in several cases it was the deterrent effect of fascism that
directly triggered the overthrow of liberal democracy or the hardening
of authoritarian rule. While fear of communism constituted a crucial
underlying cause, the upsurge of fascist movements and the perceived risk
of their power seizure motivated preemptive self-coups or the fortification
of existing dictatorships. The specter of fascism turned especially salient
after Hitler’s Machtergreifung in Germany and the surprising ease with
which the NSDAP leader shoved aside the conservative elites trying to
tame him. While the Nazis’ quick march toward totalitarianism inspired
radical right-wingers in numerous countries, this nascent wave of
extreme-right diffusion – typically – provoked strong counter-diffusion,
which nipped fascism’s proliferation in the bud. Like Lenin’s followers,
the imitators of Mussolini and Hitler foundered on determined conserva-
tive resistance.
Thus, during the interwar years, intense concerns about communism
caused a political groundswell toward the right, yet strong concern about
fascism induced conservative elites to shy away from the radical right.
 The Dual Backlash Dynamic of the Interwar Years 319

Driven by this double deterrent effect, these establishment sectors

imposed authoritarian rule as a safeguard against challenges emerging
from both poles of the ideological spectrum. New regime models, namely
communism on the left and fascism on the right, drew enormous atten-
tion, exuded wide-ranging appeal, and induced significant groupings to
promote their diffusion with tremendous energy and self-sacrificing com-
mitment. But these millenarian efforts – especially those of the radical left,
but also those of the radical right – aroused profound fear among power-
ful sociopolitical elites and therefore prompted forceful counter-diffusion.
Communist and fascist movements undertook countless efforts to emulate
the precedents of Lenin and of Mussolini and Hitler, respectively; but
status-quo defenders responded with a host of counter-measures and –
with the striking and hugely consequential exception of Germany – man-
aged to avoid full-scale contagion, often at considerable cost.
The most tragic aspect of these innumerable battles over diffusion and
counter-diffusion was the collateral damage that they almost invariably
inflicted on liberal democracy. So often during the 1920s and 1930s,
conservative sectors who were determined to forestall a communist revo-
lution and/or a fascist takeover ended up killing political liberty. As
politics turned into fierce ideological struggles, liberal tolerance was
frequently trampled to death. Although the fervent advocates of millenar-
ian projects rarely won out, their defeat came at the price of large-scale
coercion and authoritarian imposition. The worst enemies of democracy
usually lost – but in this process, democracy was lost as well.
This double backlash, with the deterrent effect of fascism nested in the
deterrent effect of communism, gave the interwar reverse wave its great
complexity. Due to the causally connected emergence of two opposed
models of dictatorship, the frequent downfall of democracy in Southern,
Eastern, and Central Europe and in Latin America did not advance in one
uniform process, as happened in other autocratic regime cascades.
Instead, diverse waves of diffusion and counter-diffusion unfolded as
political actors of various stripes learned from and responded to striking
precedents, especially Lenin’s revolutionary coup in Russia, the emer-
gence of the fascist counter-model in Italy, and its high-profile emulation
in Nazi Germany.
In these diffusion processes, deterrent effects usually overpowered
demonstration effects. Therefore, precisely because Lenin succeeded in
Russia, his disciples in other countries had much lower chances of repli-
cating the Bolshevist takeover; each one of their emulation efforts quickly
failed because status-quo defenders counter-mobilized. Similarly,
320 Conclusion

precisely because Mussolini and then Hitler managed to take power, their
followers in other countries had much lower chances of success as well;
that Hitler managed to follow in the Duce’s footsteps remains the tragic
and world-historically disastrous exception. Yet the German fascist’s
unlikely feat then sounded the alarm bells across Europe and Latin
America and induced conservative authoritarians to avoid further repeti-
tions at all cost. Thus, through the interactive dynamic of diffusion and
counter-diffusion, a striking success – whether achieved by the radical left
or the radical right – helped to cause a long string of subsequent failures.
These backlash effects, with their riptides and undertows, gave regime
developments during the interwar years their dizzying, topsy-turvy char-
acteristics. The ground was constantly trembling under political actors’
feet. Forces that seemed ascendant during one moment were outman-
euvered or crushed at the next moment. Sectors that had long seemed
powerful faced sudden challenges that threatened them with downfall or
destruction; but then they managed to parlay old resources and employ
new tactics to end up staying on top. These rescue efforts, however,
commonly had one important victim, namely liberal democracy. As dif-
ferent political and ideological groupings engaged in all-out struggles for
survival and predominance, liberty was so often destroyed.
A comparison with other reactionary regime cascades shows the
unusual complexity of the interwar reverse wave. The installation of
authoritarian regimes in Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s, for
instance, unfolded in a much more straightforward fashion. As Castroite
communism provoked powerful deterrent effects, radical-left emulation
suffered uniform defeat, and sooner or later military coups ushered in
conservative, anti-communist authoritarianism (Weyland 2019). Thus,
the basic deterrent effect highlighted in this book, namely right-wing
reaction to the perceived threat of left-wing revolution, was decisive. As
a sufficient cause, counter-diffusion operated in a direct, clearly
visible fashion.
As the contrast with the interwar years suggests, the relative simplicity
of this regional reverse wave reflected the absence of a broadly attractive,
politically viable counter-model forged by the radical right. While some
old fascists of the interwar years, such as Plínio Salgado in Brazil, played
minor roles in the institution of conservative authoritarianism,1 and while
some extreme-right movements emerged, especially anti-communist death

1
These continuities are examined and emphasized for Argentina by Finchelstein (2017).
 Bounded Rationality and the Tragedy of the Interwar Years 321

squads in Argentina, they remained marginal. Instead, conservative

forces, led in most countries by powerful professional armies, com-
manded clear and unchallenged predominance among the right-wing
adversaries of communist revolution. The military was confident in its
capacity to defeat its radical-left enemies and did not need help from
violent hordes mobilized by fascist leaders, whose activities instead
threatened to undermine its cherished monopoly over coercion.
The Russian Revolution, however, was a more momentous shock than
the Cuban Revolution four decades later. By 1959, the limited appeal of
communism and the strong deterrent effects it stimulated had already
become clear. Moreover, status-quo defenders had learned how to “deal
with” left-wing extremists effectively. Also, states had gained further
institutional strength and militaries had professionalized, in Latin
America with ample help from the United States. And, of course, fascism
had become discredited by its terrible atrocities and its self-destruction in
WWII; consequently, after 1945 this extreme-right regime model has
found only very marginal support across the globe.
In contrast to the Cuban Revolution in Latin America, the emergence
of the first communist regime in human history and Lenin’s takeover of a
great power stimulated particularly intense threat perceptions, which
provoked exceptionally strong backlash effects. Therefore, left-wing rad-
icalism helped to spark right-wing radicalism and bring forth the fascist
counter-model. Furthermore, as the brutalities of WWI had left behind
masses of fighters who found reintegration into civilian life difficult,
fascist leaders encountered fertile ground for their recruitment efforts.
The rise of fascism then prompted the second deterrent effect, which
caused the tensions and clashes among the counterrevolutionary right so
distinctive of the 1920s and 1930s. Comparisons with the Latin American
coup wave of the 1960s and 1970s thus highlight how unusually complex
the earlier reverse wave really was.

    

   
What gave the demonstration and deterrent effects that drove the reverse
wave of the 1920s and 1930s their special force and particularly perni-
cious impact was that the underlying perceptions and choices often devi-
ated starkly from the norms and principles of rational decision-making.
The hopes of the left and the fears of the right did not directly reflect
objective opportunities or dangers in the real world. Instead, cognitive
322 Conclusion

heuristics caused substantial distortions, which instilled wild over-

optimism in some sectors of the left, while striking broad segments of
the right and center with excessive dread. As both sides of the ideological
divide were carried away by inferential shortcuts and jumped to unwar-
ranted conclusions, left-wing groupings initiated rash, ill-considered
efforts to pursue their illusory goals; and a strong phalanx of status-quo
defenders overreacted by squashing these unrealistic uprisings with dis-
proportionate force and grave damage to political liberty.
Cognitive deviations from standard rationality thus exacerbated the
violence and cruelty so characteristic of the interwar years (see recently
Gerwarth 2016). Politics turned even more bloody than the clash of
ideological projects and millenarian visions would have predicted and
“required.” All sides engaged in significant overkill; there was a stark
surplus of terror. What rational reason existed, for instance, for the
cowardly murder of Rosa Luxemburg in January 1919, days after the
haphazard, unplanned “Spartakus Uprising” had already been defini-
tively defeated? Similarly, the red terror and especially the subsequent
white terror in the Finnish and Baltic civil wars of 1918–19 and in the
Hungarian revolution and counterrevolution of 1919 went far beyond
any targeted repression pursuing the consolidation of power (Traverso
2016: 46–48, 56).2 Moreover, why did Spain’s Franco continue to exe-
cute thousands of prisoners months and years after winning a clear
victory in the bloody civil war, which had seen a shocking outburst
of atrocities committed by his left-wing adversaries as well, such as
the assassination of approximately 6,800 Catholic priests (Traverso
2016: 90)?
This “unbelievable” excess of violence was fueled by the mispercep-
tions and misjudgments resulting from cognitive shortcuts and skewed
choice weights. Due to these mechanisms of bounded rationality, left-
wingers tried with all means to advance their extremist plans under
circumstances that were clearly unpropitious for revolutions. Whereas
rational assessments of the political opportunity structure would have
counseled patience, groupings carried away by Lenin’s feats rashly struck
nevertheless. Right-wingers, in turn, also overestimated the chances that
these unpromising initiatives would achieve success; therefore, they used
the sledgehammer of massive coercion to swat at these wasps. The

2
The wanton massacres in the Baltic States in 1919 left even Rudolf Höß, not a fainthearted
soul as later commander of the Auschwitz extermination camp, aghast (Höß [1947] 1963:
35).
 Bounded Rationality and the Tragedy of the Interwar Years 323

horrendous “fire and blood [of] the European civil war” (Traverso 2016)
went far beyond what any rational calculation would have expected; they
resulted to a considerable extent from the cognitive distortions docu-
mented by decades of psychological research.
The noteworthy fact that political actors across the ideological spec-
trum displayed these clear deviations from rationality and that these
sworn enemies often coincided in fundamental perceptions, especially by
overestimating the likelihood of revolution, shows that these problems
did not have their root cause in strategic interests or ideological commit-
ments. In particular, they were not due to wishful thinking by the left or
deliberate fearmongering by the right. Instead, they arose from inferential
shortcuts hardwired in humans’ cognitive architecture, which people of
all persuasions commonly and automatically use. These heuristics
inspired belief in the ease of profound sociopolitical transformations,
which then gave rise to the over-optimism among left-wingers as well as
the grave worries and sometimes panic among right-wingers. Thus, these
shared perceptions, due to divergent self-interests and ideological com-
mitments, prompted different, radically opposed courses of action,
namely revolutionary adventures by leftists and counterrevolutionary
carnage by rightists.
As Chapters 3 and 4 showed, the Russian Revolution of 1917 was
crucial in setting this escalation of misperceptions and misjudgments in
motion. The stunning ease with which the Romanovs’ centuries-old
autocracy collapsed in February, and Lenin’s surprising capacity to take
power in October and impose profound transformations against all odds,
drew tremendous attention across the world in line with the availability
heuristic. Because this shortcut induces people of all stripes to overesti-
mate the significance of dramatic, vivid events, the unexpected rise of
communism on the prominent stage of a European great power was on
everybody’s mind. Then the representativeness heuristic, which makes
people emphasize and overestimate similarities, produced the widespread
belief that the established order in other countries was also brittle and that
radical revolution could well proliferate: “The world [seemed to be] on
fire”! (Read 2008). Two of the principal shortcuts unearthed by cognitive
psychologists (Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky 1982; Gilovich, Griffin,
and Kahneman 2002) thus fueled the over-optimism and resulting revo-
lutionary hyper-activism among the left, as well as the equivalent dread
and fierce counterrevolutionary determination among the right. Due to
these deviations from standard rationality, both sides acted with consider-
able irresponsibility – and many of them ended up paying a heavy price,
324 Conclusion

adding to the phenomenal death toll of “the European civil war” (Nolte
1987a; Wirsching 1999; Traverso 2016).
One main reason for these lopsided outcomes was that among status-
quo defenders, the distorted perceptions of revolution’s likelihood and the
resulting leftist uprisings activated asymmetrical loss aversion. Whereas
Lenin’s disciples highlighted the benefits of radical redistribution for
exploited and oppressed population sectors, establishment groupings
predictably feared steep costs, if not utter destruction. Beyond the specific
price imposed on elites, the very effort to overturn the sociopolitical order
was bound to cause huge transitional damage, as the economic, political,
and human disaster in Lenin’s Russia showed.
These interest-based concerns, which reflected overestimations of revo-
lution’s likelihood, were aggravated by the disproportionate valuation of
losses, one of the most fundamental mechanisms uncovered by cognitive
psychology. Because losses hurt significantly more than gains gratify, the
prospective losers mobilized in much greater numbers and force than the
supposed winners. Adding to the resource advantages of elites, this
skewed alignment of sociopolitical forces helps explain the strikingly
uneven outcomes of the battles of the interwar years. In these all-out
contests, left-wingers always lost; right-wingers carried the day.
Paradoxically, yet predictably in the world of bounded rationality, while
the rise of Russian Bolshevism had provoked these monumental struggles,
it was not communist revolution that spread but anti-communist counter-
revolution. As the left tried hard to move forward, the right forcefully
moved history backward. The ill-considered quest for dramatic progress
provoked a stark regression. Core findings from cognitive psychology are
crucial for explaining this striking reversal, which other approaches have
difficulty understanding.
Asymmetrical loss aversion also helps account for the determined
conservative reaction to growing fascist movements. The extreme right’s
monopolistic concentration of power in an unaccountable leader, the
totalitarian penetration and domination of society, and the penchant for
violence posed considerable threats to establishment forces as well, as
Hitler’s unscrupulous march into dictatorship confirmed. What fascist
movements saw as gains instilled fears of losses in many sectors of society,
including sociopolitical elites. Consequently, loss aversion prompted coer-
cive responses to advancing fascism. While tempered by underlying ideo-
logical affinities and the frequent hope to use fascist hordes as shock
troops for battling the left, conservative distrust of rising fascist move-
ments ran high. Where extreme-right outsiders rejected attempts at
 Historical Learning from the Horrors of Fascism 325

cooptation, they therefore drew forceful counter-measures, which could

easily escalate to violent repression. In particular, loss aversion drove the
preemptive self-coups against fascist upsurges in Austria, Estonia, and
Romania; it also contributed to the hardening of authoritarianism in
Brazil, Hungary, and Portugal, as Chapter 8 analyzed.
In sum, the bloodletting of the interwar years was exacerbated by
cognitive distortions and deviations from standard rationality.
Misperceptions inflamed ideological battles as the striking, but singular,
cases of Lenin, Mussolini, and Hitler inspired excessive belief in the
feasibility of replicating these ambitious transformation projects. As
aspiring emulators pushed forward with overoptimistic energy, their
adversaries overreacted out of asymmetrical loss aversion and tried hard
to squelch these overrated threats. Where establishment sectors saw the
sociopolitical order under threat, they usually insisted on guaranteeing
stability by imposing authoritarian rule. In this multitude of conflagra-
tions, the far right and especially the far left suffered grievous costs – but
the main victim was liberal democracy.

      

As the preceding section highlighted, bounded rationality aggravated the
tragedy of the interwar years, which culminated in the phenomenal
destruction wrought by Hitler’s National Socialism (Mosse 1966:
25–26). With WWII and the Holocaust, the first half of the 1940s ranks
among the bloodiest lustra in world history. But this unspeakable catas-
trophe then exerted its own deterrent effects, motivating a great deal of
salutary learning (Mazower 1998: 182–211, 286–92). After all, bounded
rationality differs from complete irrationality in expecting the eventual
updating of beliefs in light of accumulating evidence; while these correc-
tions are not nearly as quick and systematic as postulated by rational
choice, they do tend to diminish the gap between subjective views and
changing objective circumstances. Of course, only somebody inhumanly
dense would not have learned from the disaster wrought by the Nazi
regime!
The political impact of this learning, however, depended on the inter-
ests and ideological convictions of the predominant actors; for Europe
after 1945, that meant first and foremost the victorious allied powers.
Obviously, the Soviet Union drew very different conclusions than the
Western democracies, trying to protect itself against any future attacks
from “class enemies” by occupying Eastern Europe as a security perimeter
326 Conclusion

and imposing communism across that region. Conversely, the United

States and its allies made sure that liberal democracy emerged west of
the Iron Curtain. The Western victors also learned from the problems
caused by the Versailles Treaty, foregoing territorial gains and soon
including the vanquished countries, even Germany, in their networks of
economic, political, and eventually military cooperation. Thus, after a
total, definitive military victory, great power influence indeed shaped
political regime developments in the conquered territories directly (see
recently Gunitsky 2017: chap. 5).
Moreover, political elites and common citizens in the defeated nations
also learned from the horrors of National Socialism (Bracher 1982:
271–90). Except for some isolated diehards, a large majority longed for
a new beginning and was determined to avoid the mistakes of the recent
past. Due to the discrediting of fascism, in particular, and right-wing
extremism more broadly (Berman 2019: 284–94), democracy arose from
the ashes in greater strength than before. In Ian Kershaw’s (2015) words,
after “Europe [had gone] to hell,” it soon moved “back” from the inferno
and tried hard to make liberty flourish with renewed vigor. Political
actors of all persuasions sought to learn from the cataclysm. While radical
“antifascists” jumped to the problematic conclusion that communism
offered the best alternative, the brutal oppression of Stalinist Russia made
this extremist counter-position unpersuasive to most Westerners, who
rejected totalitarianism as such, in any ideological coloring. Instead, the
devastation caused by fascism gave a strong boost to liberal democracy
and silenced most of its right-wing critics; even conservative advocates of
authoritarianism were tainted by their frequent tactical alliances with
fascists or their overconfident domestication efforts, which had proven
so misguided in 1933 in Germany.
Thus, political learning caused a massive backlash that buried fascism as
a viable regime option. This model, which had exuded strong appeal during
the interwar years, turned into a taboo with high toxicity, in Europe and at
the global level. Therefore, when fears of communist revolution became
acute again, as in Latin America after Fidel Castro’s takeover in 1959,
fascism did not reemerge as a mass movement. Instead, worried status-quo
defenders almost uniformly opted for conservative authoritarianism
imposed by the military, as mentioned in the first section of this chapter.
In the former heartland of fascism, Europe, the categorical rejection of
this extreme-right model prompted a resumption of the trend toward
liberal progress, which had gathered steam in the eighteenth and nine-
teenth centuries, but had then been so drastically interrupted during the
 Historical Learning from the Horrors of Fascism 327

interwar years. Many countries that had experienced strong political

tensions and fierce regime contention during the 1920s and 1930s
emerged from the ravages of WWII with a much deeper, more widespread
commitment to democracy, and a determination to make pluralist, com-
petitive rule work. Even the operation of strong Communist parties in
France and Italy did not shake this regime consensus; left-wingers’ cred-
ible embrace of the electoral route in turn reassured their adversaries and
limited dangerous polarization.
Thus, across Western Europe, extremism gave way to greater moder-
ation, polarization was contained by consensus on basic principles and
values, and conflict was increasingly mediated by compromise. After
people had suffered or witnessed the horrors of tyranny, the benefits of
political liberalism, starting with the protection of human rights, gained
much greater salience (for Germany, see Grosser 1974: 128–30). It
became clear that despite all its frustrating wheeling and dealing, politick-
ing and gridlock, pluralist democracy held the fundamental advantage of
protecting liberty against abuses by the state. This revaluation of political
liberalism also induced ideological moderation. Stung by the fierce battles
of the 1920s and 1930s, most political forces came to accept that ambi-
tious transformational projects did not deserve precedence over the pre-
servation of democracy (Bracher 1982: 271–90).
As the torments of autocracy instilled in most relevant actors a willing-
ness to make democracy work, they also learned from the problems and
failures of liberal regimes during the interwar years how to make democ-
racy work. New constitutions, therefore, sought to avoid the flaws of
preceding charters. Because Germany had particular reasons to learn
from the recent past, the country’s Basic Law of 1949 rested on a critical
assessment of the Weimar constitution and tried hard to design an insti-
tutional configuration that would function better. For instance, to prevent
a purely negative majority of extremists from obstructing governability –
a problem that had facilitated Hitler’s final push for power in 1932 – the
new charter stipulates the constructive vote of no-confidence: Parliament
can oust a government only via “positive” agreement on electing a new
chancellor (Schmid [1949] 1979: 517–18). The Basic Law also
strengthened liberal-democratic protections against subversion by
extremists,3 thus creating a “well-fortified democracy” (wehrhafte

3
Some of these defense mechanisms had already been introduced during the Weimar years
(Gerwarth 2018: 289–90; see in general Capoccia 2005: chap. 3), but they had not been
very consistently applied, especially against right-wing groupings.
328 Conclusion

Demokratie) that can effectively fight back against the enemies of liberty.
And to discourage the rise and survival of radical splinter parties – what
the NSDAP had been throughout the 1920s – electoral legislation intro-
duced a substantial 5 percent vote threshold for representation in parlia-
ment. In all of these ways, institutional engineers sought to forestall any
repetition of the problems and mistakes that had contributed to democ-
racy’s downfall in the 1930s.
In conclusion, political learning, stimulated by the trouble and turmoil
of the interwar years and especially by the disaster of WWII and the
Holocaust, prompted the widespread repudiation of autocracy, especially
fascism, and boosted support for pluralist democracy in Western Europe.
The obvious failure of right-wing totalitarianism caused its own powerful
backlash, which brought a reaffirmation of political liberty. Liberal pro-
gress therefore resumed after the cruel interlude of the 1920s to mid-
1940s. History advanced in twists and turns, but advance it did, albeit in
uncertain and precarious ways.

      - ?

Is democracy now threatened again as political liberalism has sunk into
malaise and as authoritarian regime types seem to gain increasing support
in some regions of the globe? Indeed, the populist wave that has swept
across the world in recent years and that has affected even many advanced
Western democracies, as indicated by the surprising election of Donald
Trump, has led to concerns about a potential resurrection of fascism, as
mentioned in the introduction. Can the present examination of “the era of
fascism” during the interwar years shed light on the current predicament?
In particular, is there a risk of fascism’s revival?
Worried observers emphasize that the right-wing fears and resentments
stoked by many contemporary populists, especially in Europe and North
America, have similarities to the demagoguery promoted by Mussolini
and Hitler. Once again, charismatic leaders seek mass support by whip-
ping up fervent nationalism, by fomenting intense nostalgia for a bygone
golden age, by calling insistently for “law and order,” and by inciting
hostility against religious, ethnic, and racial minorities. Do these echoes
suggest that fascism is on the rise again (Connolly 2017; Stanley 2018;
Traverso 2019)?
At first sight, this book with its emphasis on backlash dynamics may
seem to provide further reason for concern. After all, the recent upsurge of
right-wing populism has a certain counterrevolutionary dimension. While
 A Revival of Fascism in the 21st Century? 329

also impelled in very powerful ways by structural changes in the economy

(Gest 2016; Eatwell and Goodwin 2018; Iverson and Soskice 2019:
chap. 5), the populist wave embodies a reaction against the “silent revo-
lution” of postmodern value change (Inglehart 1977) that the Western
world has undergone in recent decades. This comprehensive questioning
of authority and tradition and the powerful quest for societal emancipa-
tion and individual autonomy have undermined the old normative order,
as evident, for instance, in unprecedented efforts to redefine the venerable
institution of marriage. Population sectors distant from the cultural van-
guard spearheading this value change, such as older generations and rural
residents, have come to view this normative progressivism as a threat to
their established way of life and as a harbinger of societal chaos, as
exemplified in their perceptions of lurid crime, “uncontrollable” mass
immigration, and Islamic terrorism. In response, the demand to stop, if
not reverse, this erosion of longstanding values has become more urgent
and louder (Norris and Inglehart 2019). Conservative sectors yearn for
returning to a glorious past, as captured in Donald Trump’s promise to
“Make America Great Again.” Right-wing populism thus feeds off a
reactionary impulse (cf. Robin 2018).
But upon closer consideration, the preceding analysis suggests that this
partial cultural backlash is exceedingly unlikely to bring a revival of
fascism in any conceivable form, both for conceptual and theoretical
reasons. As the definitional discussion in Chapter 1 – inspired by Linz’s
(2000) distinction between authoritarianism and totalitarianism –
explained and as the analysis of the serious tensions and often fierce
conflicts between conservative authoritarians and fascist totalitarians in
Chapters 6–8 corroborated, fascism forms a distinctive, special regime
type. This extreme-right type of rule differs greatly from authoritarianism
by embracing a radical, violent project for a totalitarian transformation of
politics and society, guided by an ambitious ideological vision.
Consequently, fascism profoundly diverges from the illiberal democracies
and competitive authoritarian regimes that a number of populist leaders,
ranging from Alberto Fujimori in Peru to Viktor Orbán in Hungary,
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, and Rodrigo Duterte in the
Philippines, have installed (Weyland 2018: 329–31).
Today’s right-wing populists, including President Trump, clearly lack
the millenarian ideological goals and violent dynamism that drove the
brutal dictatorships of fascism. In their opportunism, they are far less
ambitious in their political projects and do not promote basic alternatives
to liberal democracy. Conceptual precision requires highlighting these
330 Conclusion

fundamental differences. Applying the term fascism to present-day popu-

lists, even when softened by qualifying adjectives (“aspirational fascism,”
Connolly 2017), is invalid.
Such “conceptual stretching” (Sartori 1970) is also misleading by
suggesting the need for all-out resistance, including contentious protest
and civil disobedience; after all, if fascism really were on the rise again,
opponents might have to fight fire with fire. But such a confrontational
approach is unpromising and counterproductive for reining in populist
leaders and for forestalling the damage they can do to liberal democracy,
as the striking failure of the fierce, contentious opposition against
Venezuelan populist Hugo Chávez during the early 2000s shows
(Gamboa 2017). Because populist leaders thrive on confrontation and
actively seek to provoke “enemies,” out-of-control opposition plays into
their hands.
Especially in advanced industrialized countries with their institutional
strength, the opposition to populism is well-advised to channel its partici-
patory energies into conventional institutions, primarily the electoral
arena, as the Democratic success in the US midterm elections of 2018 cor-
roborates (Weyland 2020: 402). Depicting right-wing populists like
Donald Trump as scary (proto-fascists can only disrupt this calm yet
effective containment strategy. Thus, my insistence on the categorical
difference between fascism and right-wing populism arises not only from
the quest for conceptual clarity but also from the interest to avoid the
confrontational trap that populist leaders of all stripes commonly set for
their liberal-democratic opponents.
Besides highlighting crucial conceptual differences, the present study
also demonstrates the distinctive causes for the emergence of fascism,
which diverge from the problems plaguing present-day democracies.
Once again, apparent similarities – in this case, between the turn against
liberal progress around 1900 and the backlash against postmodern value
change after 2000 – can be deceptive. During the interwar years, liberal-
ism and democracy faced much more profound questioning and more
intense rejection than during the last decade, even among most supporters
of right-wing populists such as Donald Trump.
Moreover, fascism was not the direct product of a darkening Zeitgeist,
namely the cultural pessimism spreading from the late nineteenth century
onward (Burrow 2000). These illiberal ideas were amorphous and het-
erogeneous and did not uniformly lead toward fascism. Most import-
antly, normative appeal does not directly shape regime developments.
After all, this book highlights that despite its tremendous attraction
 A Revival of Fascism in the 21st Century? 331

during the interwar years, fascism rarely found adoption as a full-scale

regime. For all these reasons, the cultural resistance against ultraliberal
value change and the normative resentments that have arisen in recent
years will not lead to a reemergence of fascism.
As this study showed, a decisive trigger of fascism was the concrete,
dramatic challenge emanating from the Russian Revolution. Mussolini
and Hitler’s project of radical counterrevolution arose and attracted a
good deal of support because it looked like a crucial safeguard against the
menace of communism. During the interwar years, the radical right only
won mass backing where broad population sectors perceived an acute
threat from the radical left and therefore sought protection via the
dynamic force of fascism.
The early twenty-first century does not face any threat of this magni-
tude, especially in advanced industrialized countries. Communism has
virtually disappeared, confined to the hermetic realm of the Kim dynasty
in North Korea and the “living museum” of Cuba. Who would want to
emulate these sad remnants of an ideology that has clearly lost its luster
(Furet 1999)? An update of Barrington Moore’s famous equation (cf.
Moore 1966) would suggest, “no communism – no fascism.” Certainly,
the Western left, weakened by economic globalization and the rise of new
issue cleavages, is unwilling and unable to push its original demands for
profound socioeconomic redistribution; therefore, it does not pose any
significant danger to elite interests that would prompt a forceful reaction-
ary reflex. Other major threats to the sociopolitical order are not on the
horizon either. While Islamic fundamentalism sparks occasional attacks,
this terrorism is much too sporadic to provoke broad demands for a
profound backlash. Donald Trump’s Muslim travel bans are certainly
not the first step toward fascism. Thus, there is no risk of drastic shocks
that could provoke widespread acquiescence in – not to speak of clamor
for – a fascist reaction.
The absence of an acute hostile challenge that could make liberal
democracy again look weak also suggests that the wavelike imposition
of authoritarianism is unlikely, especially in advanced industrialized
countries. Coups, still common during the interwar years, are becoming
rare worldwide (Bermeo 2016: 6–8). The gradual suffocation of democ-
racy that many observers associate with populism (see most prominently
Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018) is not imminent either. The longstanding
democracies of North America and Western Europe, which rest on strong
institutional frameworks and are sustained by energetic, vigilant civil
societies, have achieved a high degree of consolidation (cf. Svolik 2015;
332 Conclusion

Cornell, Møller, and Skaaning 2017, 2020). Due to their economic diver-
sification and social safety nets, they are fairly immune to major shocks
and show resilience even in the face of crises (Wibbels 2006). Thus, the
causal factors that have allowed populist leaders to strangle democracy
here and there – though much less commonly than is often implied – do
not threaten advanced industrialized countries. The fears that have spread
in recent years are derived from a few outstanding cases of populist
destruction of democracy; fueled by the availability heuristic, these con-
cerns do not withstand more systematic scrutiny, which shows the fre-
quent failure of populist power grabs – and the corresponding survival
and recovery of liberal democracy (Weyland 2020). For these reasons, an
authoritarian wave, not to speak of a massive riptide as during the
interwar years, is exceedingly unlikely.
In sum, the present study, both with its conceptual implications and its
theoretical arguments, suggests that observers need not worry about a
resurgence of fascism, as long as the term is used with any precision.
Without a dramatic revolution – or a similarly drastic challenge – there
will not be support for radical counterrevolution. Liberal malaise and
even right-wing populism do not directly bring forth reactionary extrem-
ism; they are unlikely to lead to the spread of authoritarianism as well,
especially in Western countries. The contemporary world faces a multi-
tude of problems, ranging from climate change to stark social inequality
and issues of cultural integration, but resurgent fascism or an upsurge of
authoritarianism are not among them.
 Bibliography1

Acemoglu, Daron, and James Robinson. 2005. Economic Origins of Dictatorship

and Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Adinolfi, Goffredo. 2019. Corporatism and Italian Fascism. In António Costa
Pinto and Federico Finchelstein, eds. Authoritarianism and Corporatism in
Europe and Latin America, 10–26. London: Routledge.
2012. The Institutionalization of Propaganda in the Fascist Era. European
Legacy 17:5 (July): 607–21.
2007. Ai Confini del Fascismo. Milan: FrancoAngeli.
Adinolfi, Goffredo, and António Costa Pinto. 2014. Salazar’s ‘New State.’ In
António Costa Pinto and Aristotle Kallis, eds. Rethinking Fascism and
Dictatorship in Europe, 154–75. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
Alapuro, Risto. 1988. State and Revolution in Finland. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Alapuro, Risto, and Erik Allardt. 1978. The Lapua Movement. In Juan Linz and
Alfred Stepan, eds. The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Europe,
122–41. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Albanese, Giulia. 2016. Dittature mediterranee. Rome: Editori Laterza.
Albanese, Matteo, and Pablo del Hierro. 2016. Transnational Fascism in the
Twentieth Century. London: Bloomsbury.
Albert, Bill. 1988. South America and the First World War. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Álvarez Tardío, Manuel. 2012. The CEDA. In Manuel Álvarez Tardío and
Fernando del Rey Reguillo, eds. The Spanish Second Republic Revisited,
58–79. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press.
Álvarez Tardío, Manuel, and Fernando del Rey Reguillo. 2012. Introduction. In
Manuel Álvarez Tardío and Fernando del Rey Reguillo, eds. The Spanish
Second Republic Revisited, 1–8. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press.

1
Where a text was originally published long before the edition I used and where this earlier
publication date holds historical significance, I listed it in parenthesis.

333
334 Bibliography

Angress, Werner. 1972. Stillborn Revolution. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat.

Aranha, Oswaldo. 1937. Letter by Brazilian Ambassador in Washington to
Getúlio Vargas. April. Archived in Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de
História Contemporânea do Brasil (CPDOC), Fundação Getúlio Vargas, Rio
de Janeiro. GVc 1937.04.00/3 (vol. XXV–77a).
Araquistáin, Luis. 1935. The October Revolution in Spain. Foreign Affairs 13:2
(January): 247–61.
1934. The Struggle in Spain. Foreign Affairs 12:3 (April): 458–71.
Armstrong, Hamilton. 1933. Hitler’s Reich. Foreign Affairs 11:4 (July): 589–608.
Arosalo, Sirkka. 1998. Social Conditions for Political Violence. Journal of Peace
Research 35:2 (March): 147–66.
Austin, Roger. 1990. The Conservative Right and the Far Right in France. In
Martin Blinkhorn, ed. Fascists and Conservatives, 176–99. London:
Routledge.
Balkelis, Tomas. 2012. Turning Citizens into Soldiers. In Robert Gerwarth and
John Horne, eds. War in Peace, 126–44. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Banac, Ivo. 1983. The Emergence of Communism in East Central Europe,
1918–1921. In Ivo Banac, ed. The Effects of World War I, 1–4. New York:
Atlantic Research and Publications.
Barata, Julio. 1938. O Espírito da Nova Constituição. Rio de Janeiro: Mandarino
& Molinari.
Barth, Emil. 1919. Aus der Werkstatt der deutschen Revolution. Berlin: A.
Hoffmann’s Verlag.
Bartolini, Stefano. 2000. The Political Mobilization of the European Left.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bassler, Gerhard. 1973. The Communist Movement in the German Revolution,
1918–1919. Central European History 6:3 (September): 233–77.
Bauerkämper, Arnd. 2006. Der Faschismus in Europa 1918–1945. Stuttgart: Reclam.
Bauerkämper, Arnd, and Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe. 2017. Introduction. In
Arnd Bauerkämper and Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, eds. Fascism without
Borders, 1–8. New York: Berghahn.
Beck, Hermann. 2008. The Fateful Alliance: German Conservatives and Nazis in
1933. New York: Berghahn.
Beckert, Jens. 2010. Institutional Isomorphism Revisited. Sociological Theory
28:2 (June): 150–66.
Ben-Ami, Shlomo. 1983. Fascism from above: Primo de Rivera in Spain. Oxford:
Clarendon.
Benda, Julien. 1935. The Enemies of Democracy in France. Foreign Affairs 13:2
(January): 284–94.
Bendor, Jonathan. 2010. Bounded Rationality and Politics. Berkeley: University
of California Press.
Benson, Leslie. 2001. Yugoslavia: A Concise History. Houndmills: Palgrave.
Berend, Ivan. 1998. Decades of Crisis: Central and Eastern Europe before World
War II. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Berg-Schlosser, Dirk. 2009. Long Waves and Conjunctures of Democratization. In
Christian Haerpfer, Patrick Bernhagen, et al., eds. Democratization, 41–54.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Bibliography 335

Berg-Schlosser, Dirk, and Gisèle De Meur. 1994. Conditions of Democracy in

Interwar Europe. Comparative Politics 26:3 (April): 253–79.
Berg-Schlosser, Dirk, and Jeremy Mitchell. 2000. Introduction. In Dirk Berg-
Schlosser and Jeremy Mitchell, eds. Conditions of Democracy in Europe,
1919–1939, 1–39. Houndmills: Macmillan.
Berman, Sheri. 2019. Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
2006. The Primacy of Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bermeo, Nancy. 2016. On Democratic Backsliding. Journal of Democracy 27:1
(January): 5–19.
2003. Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Bernecker, Walther. 2002. Europa zwischen den Weltkriegen 1914–1945.
Stuttgart: Ulmer.
1980. Kollektivismus und Freiheit. Munich: DTV.
Bernhard, Michael. 2005. Institutions and the Fate of Democracy. Pittsburgh:
University of Pittsburgh Press.
Bernstein, Eduard. (1921) 1998. Die deutsche Revolution von 1918/19, ed.
Heinrich August Winkler. Bonn: Dietz.
(1899) 1991. Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus und die Aufgaben der
Sozialdemokratie. Berlin: Dietz.
Bertonha, João. 2013. The Corporatist Thought in Miguel Reale. Revista
Brasileira de História 33:66 (December): 225–42.
2000. Between Sigma and Fascio. Luso-Brazilian Review 37:1 (Summer):
93–105.
Bessel, Richard. 1991. 1933: A Failed Counter-Revolution. In Ellen Rice, ed.
Revolution and Counter-Revolution, 109–27. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Bethlen, Stephen. 1925. Hungary in the New Europe. Foreign Affairs 3:3 (April):
445–58.
Beyrau, Dietrich. 2017. Portent or Salvation. In Stefan Rinke and Michael Wildt,
eds. 2017. Revolutions and Counter-Revolutions, 55–77. Frankfurt:
Campus.
Birmingham, David. 2003. A Concise History of Portugal, 2nd ed. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Blaney, Gerald. 2016. Violence, Continuity, and the Spanish State. Journal of
Contemporary History 51:2 (April): 413–19.
Blinkhorn, Martin. 1990. Conservatism, Traditionalism, and Fascism in Spain,
1898–1937. In Martin Blinkhorn, ed. Fascists and Conservatives, 118–37.
London: Routledge.
Blom, J. C. Hans. 2006. The Netherlands since 1830. In J. C. Hans Blom and
Emiel Lamberts, eds. History of the Low Countries, 393–469. New York:
Berghahn.
Bodó, Béla. 2011. The White Terror in Hungary, 1919–1921. Austrian History
Yearbook 42: 133–63.
Bois, Marcel. 2017. Opposing Hitler and Stalin. In Ralf Hoffrogge and Norman
LaPorte, eds. Weimar Communism as Mass Movement, 150–69. London:
Lawrence and Wishart.
336 Bibliography

Boix, Carles. 2011. Democracy, Development, and the International System.

American Political Science Review 105:4 (November): 809–28.
Bosworth, Richard. 2009a. Dictators Strong or Weak? In Richard Bosworth,
ed. Oxford Handbook of Fascism, 259–75. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
2009b. Introduction. In Richard Bosworth, ed. Oxford Handbook of Fascism,
1–7. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ed. 2009c. Oxford Handbook of Fascism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2002. Mussolini. London: Hodder Arnold.
Botz, Gerhard. 2017. ‘Corporatist State’ and Enhanced Authoritarian
Dictatorship. In António Costa Pinto, ed. Corporatism and Fascism,
144–73. London: Routledge.
2014. The Coming of the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg Regime. In António Costa Pinto
and Aristotle Kallis, eds. Rethinking Fascism and Dictatorship in Europe,
121–53. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
Braatz, Werner. 1973. Franz von Papen and the Preussenschlag. European Studies
Review 3:2 (April): 157–80.
1971. Two Neo-Conservative Myths in Germany 1919–32. Journal of the
History of Ideas 32:4 (October–December): 569–84.
Bracher, Karl Dietrich. 1982. Zeit der Ideologien. Stuttgart: DVA.
1980. Die deutsche Diktatur, 6th ed. Frankfurt: Ullstein.
1979. Die nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung, vol. 1: Stufen der
Machtergreifung. Frankfurt: Ullstein.
(1955) 1978. Die Auflösung der Weimarer Republik, 5th ed. Königstein:
Athenäum – Droste.
Bradley, John. 2000. Czechoslovakia. In Dirk Berg-Schlosser and Jeremy Mitchell,
eds. Conditions of Democracy in Europe, 1919–1939, 85–105. Houndmills:
Macmillan.
Brands, Henry. 2008. Traitor to his Class. New York: Doubleday.
Brinkmann, Sören. 2017. Demokratie ohne Demokraten? In Steffen Kailitz, ed.
Nach dem “Großen Krieg”, 407–29. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Brook-Shepherd, Gordon. 1962. Prelude to Infamy: The Story of Chancellor
Dollfuss of Austria. New York: Ivan Obolensky.
Broué, Pierre. 2006. The German Revolution, 1917–1923. Chicago: Haymarket
Books.
Brown, Jonathan. 2011. A Brief History of Argentina, 2nd ed. New York:
Checkmark Books.
Broszat, Martin. 1993. Die Machtergreifung, 4th ed. Munich: DTV.
1976. Soziale und psychologische Grundlagen des Nationalsozialismus. In
Edgar Feuchtwanger, ed. Deutschland – Wandel und Bestand, 129–54.
Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
1969. Der Staat Hitlers. Munich: DTV.
Brüggemann, Karsten. 2006. “Foreign Rule” during the Estonian War of
Independence 1918–1920. Journal of Baltic Studies 37:2 (Summer): 210–26.
2003. Defending National Sovereignty against Two Russias. Journal of Baltic
Studies 34:1 (Spring): 22–51.
Brüning, Heinrich. 1970. Memoiren 1918–1934. Stuttgart: DVA.
 Bibliography 337

Buchanan, Tom. 2002. Anti-Fascism and Democracy in the 1930s. European

History Quarterly 32:1 (January): 39–57.
Bucur, Maria. 2007. Carol II of Romania. In Bernd Fischer, ed. Balkan
Strongmen, 87–117. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press.
Burrow, John. 2000. The Crisis of Reason. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press.
Buruma, Ian, and Avishai Margalit. 2004. Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of
Its Enemies. New York: Penguin.
Butulis, Ilgvars. 2001. Autoritäre Ideologie und Praxis des Ulmanis-Regimes in
Lettland 1934–1940. In Erwin Oberländer, ed. Autoritäre Regime in
Ostmittel- und Südosteuropa 1919-1944, 249–48. Paderborn: Schöningh.
Călinescu, Armand. 1999. Însemnǎri Politice, 1916–1939. Bucharest: Humanitas.
Camargo, Aspásia, Dulce Pandolfi et al. 1989. O Golpe Silencioso. Rio de Janeiro:
Rio Fundo.
Campbell, Gregory. 1977. Central Europe’s Bastion of Democracy. East
European Quarterly 11:2 (Summer): 155–76.
Campos, Francisco. 1937. O Estado Nacional e suas Diretrizes. Rio de Janeiro:
Imprensa Nacional.
Capoccia, Giovanni. 2005. Defending Democracy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press.
Capoccia, Giovanni, and Daniel Kelemen. 2007. The Study of Critical Junctures.
World Politics 59:3 (April): 341–69.
Capoccia, Giovanni, and Daniel Ziblatt. 2010. The Historical Turn in
Democratization Studies. Comparative Political Studies 43:8/9 (August/
September): 931–68.
Cardoso, José, and Nuno Ferreira. 2017. The Corporatist Chamber of the ‘New
State’ in Portugal. In António Costa Pinto, ed. Corporatism and Fascism,
174–97. London: Routledge.
Carol II, King of Romania. 1995. Între Datorie şi Pasiune: Însemnǎri Zilnice.
Vol. 1: (1904–1939). Bucharest: Editura Silex.
Carone, Edgard. 1982. A Terceira República (1937–1945), 2nd ed. São Paulo:
DIFEL.
Carr, Raymond, and Juan Pablo Fusi. 1989. Spain: Dictatorship to Democracy,
2nd ed. London: Unwin Hyman.
Carsten, Francis. 1988. Revolution in Central Europe, 1918–1919. Aldershot:
Wildwood House.
1982. The Rise of Fascism, 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Carter, William. 1936. Spain and the Social Revolution. International Affairs 15:5
(September–October): 647–70.
Carvalho, José Murilo de. 1999. Vargas e os Militares. In Maria D’Araujo, ed. As
Instituições Brasileiras da Era Vargas, 55–81. Rio de Janeiro: Editora UERJ.
Carvalho, Rita Almeida de. 2013. A Concordata de Salazar. Lisbon: Círculo de
Leitores.
Casanova, Julián. 2014. Historia de España, vol. 8: República y guerra civil.
Barcelona: Crítica/Marcial Pons.
Cassels, Alan. 1963. Mussolini and German Nationalism, 1922–25. Journal of
Modern History 35:2 (June): 137–57.
338 Bibliography

Castro, Augusto de. 1934a. Discurso do Sr. Mussolini. Rome, October 7.

Archived in Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Lisbon. PT/TT/AOS/
CO/NE-4D, caixa 379, pt.2, 36ª subdivisão, serie A, No. 194.
1934b. Letter by Portuguese Ambassador in Italy to Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Rome, February 17. Archived in Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo,
Lisbon. PT/TT/AOS/CO/NE-4D, pt.2 – Itália – Roma (Quirinal), caixa 379,
serie A No. 35, folhas 5-6.
1934c. Letter by Portuguese Ambassador in Italy to Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Rome, October 17. Archived in Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo,
Lisbon. PT/TT/AOS/CO/NE-4D, pt.2 – Itália – Roma (Quirinal), caixa 379,
serie A No. 198, 38ª subdivisão, folha 200.
Cavalari, Rosa. 1999. Integralismo. Bauru, SP: Editora da Universidade Sagrado
Coração.
Chary, Frederick. 2007. Boris III, Tsar of the Bulgarians. In Bernd Fischer, ed.
Balkan Strongmen, 118–39. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press.
Cheibub, José Antonio. 2007. Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, and Democracy.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Childers, Thomas. 1984. Who, Indeed, Did Vote for Hitler? Central European
History 17:1 (March): 45–53.
Cioran, Emil. (1931–37) 2011. Über Deutschland. Berlin: Suhrkamp.
Clark, Roland. 2015. Holy Legionary Youth. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press.
Clogg, Richard. 2002. A Concise History of Greece, 2nd ed. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Codreanu, Corneliu Zelea. (1938) 2015. The Prison Notes. Helsingborg: Logik
Förlag.
1939. Eiserne Garde. Berlin: Brunnen.
Collier, David, and Steven Levitsky. 1997. Democracy with Adjectives:
Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research. World Politics 49:3
(April): 430–51.
Collier, Ruth. 1999. Paths toward Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Connelly, John. 2020. From Peoples into Nations: A History of Eastern Europe.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Connolly, William. 2017. Aspirational Fascism. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.
Cornell, Agnes, Jørgen Møller, and Svend-Erik Skaaning. 2020. Democratic
Stability in an Age of Crisis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2017. The Real Lessons of the Interwar Years. Journal of Democracy 28:3
(July): 14–28.
Corner, Paul. 2002. The Road to Fascism. Contemporary European History 11:2
(May): 273–95.
Cornwall, Mark. 2014. The Czechoslovak Sphinx: Konrad Henlein. In Rebecca
Haynes and Martin Rady, eds. In the Shadow of Hitler, 206–26. London: Tauris.
2007. “A Leap into Ice Cold Water.” In Mark Cornwall and Robert Evans, eds.
Czechoslovakia in a Nationalist and Fascist Europe, 1918–1948, 123–42.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Bibliography 339

Crampton, Richard. 2005. A Concise History of Bulgaria, 2nd ed. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.
D’Agostino, Anthony. 2012. The Rise of Global Powers. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Daly, Jonathan, and Leonid Trofimov. 2017. The Russian Revolution and Its
Global Impact. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
D’Araujo, Maria. 2000. O Estado Novo. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar.
Davies, Norman. 2005. God’s Playground: A History of Poland, vol. 2, revised
ed. New York: Columbia University Press.
Deák, István. 1968. Budapest and the Hungarian Revolutions of 1918–1919.
Slavonic and East European Review 46:106 (January): 129–40.
Debray, Régis. 1967. Revolution in the Revolution? New York: Grove Press.
De Bromhead, Alan, Barry Eichengreen, and Kevin O’Rourke. 2013. Political
Extremism in the 1920s and 1930s. Journal of Economic History 73:2
(June): 371–406.
Deletant, Dennis. 2014. Ion Antonescu. In Rebecca Haynes and Martin Rady, eds.
In the Shadow of Hitler, 278–94. London: Tauris.
De Meur, Gisèle, and Dirk Berg-Schlosser. 1996. Conditions of Authoritarianism,
Fascism, and Democracy in Interwar Europe. Comparative Political Studies
29:4 (August): 423–68.
Deuerlein, Ernst. 1974. Der Aufstieg der NSDAP in Augenzeugenberichten.
Munich: DTV.
Deutsch, Sandra. 1999. Las Derechas. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Devoto, Fernando. 2005. Nacionalismo, fascismo y tradicionalismo en la
Argentina moderna, 2nd ed. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI.
De Wever, Bruno. 2009. Belgium. In Richard Bosworth, ed. Oxford Handbook of
Fascism, 470–88. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Diffie, Bailey. 1940. Some Foreign Influences in Contemporary Brazilian Politics.
Hispanic American Historical Review 20:3 (August): 402–29.
DiMaggio, Paul, and Walter Powell. 1983. The Iron Cage Revisited. American
Sociological Review 48:2 (April): 147–60.
Dionne, Eugene, Norman Ornstein, and Thomas Mann. 2017. One Nation after
Trump. New York: St. Martin’s.
Ditadura Moldada nos Ensinamentos de Primo de Rivera e Mussolini. 1926.
Newspaper clipping of June 9, archived in Arquivo Nacional da Torre do
Tombo, Lisbon. PT/TT/MI-DGAPC/2/696/589 Min. Interior, Direcção Geral
de Administração Política e Civil, NT 696, pt. 589.
Dittmann, Wilhelm. 1995. Erinnerungen, vol. 2, ed. Jürgen Rojahn. Frankfurt:
Campus.
Dobry, Michel. 2011. Desperately Seeking “Generic Fascism.” In António Costa
Pinto, ed. Rethinking the Nature of Fascism, 53–84. Houndmills: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Dogliani, Patrizia. 2009. Propaganda and Youth. In Richard Bosworth, ed.
Oxford Handbook of Fascism, 185–202. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dolkart, Ronald. 1993. The Right in the Década Infame, 1930–1943. In Sandra
McGee Deutsch and Ronald Dolkart, eds. The Argentine Right, 65–98.
Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources.
340 Bibliography

Dollfuß, Eva. 1994. Mein Vater: Hitlers erstes Opfer. Vienna: Amalthea.
Doumanis, Nicholas, ed. 2016. Oxford Handbook of European History
1914–1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dreisziger, Nandor. 1968. Hungary’s Way to World War II. Astor Park, FL:
Danubian.
Duarte, Theóphilo. 1941. Sidónio Pais e o seu Consulado. Lisbon: Editora
Portugália.
Dukes, Paul. 1979. October and the World. New York: St. Martin’s.
Ealham, Chris. 2013. The Emperor’s New Clothes. Journal of Contemporary
History 48:1 (January): 191–202.
Eatwell, Roger. 2011. Ideology, Propaganda, Violence and the Rise of Fascism. In
António Costa Pinto, ed. Rethinking the Nature of Fascism, 165–85.
Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
2001. Universal Fascism? In Stein Larsen, ed. Fascism Outside Europe, 15–45.
Boulder, CO: Social Science Monographs.
Eatwell, Roger, and Matthew Goodwin. 2018. National Populism. London:
Pelican.
Ebert, Friedrich. 1926. Schriften, Aufzeichnungen, Reden, 2 vols. Dresden: Carl
Reissner.
Ebner, Katharina. 2013. Politische Katholizismen in Österreich 1933–1938. In
Florian Wenninger and Lucile Dreidemy, eds. Das Dollfuß-/Schuschnigg-
Regime 1933–1938, 159–221. Vienna: Böhlau.
Eckelt, Frank. 1971. The Internal Policies of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. In
Iván Völgyes, ed. Hungary in Revolution, 1918–19, 61–88. Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press.
Eley, Geoff. 2013. Nazism as Fascism. London: Routledge.
2002. Forging Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Eliade, Mircea. 1988. Autobiography, vol. 2. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
1981. Autobiography, vol. 1. New York: Harper & Row.
Eliasberg, George. 1974. Der Ruhrkrieg von 1920. Bonn – Bad Godesberg: Verlag
Neue Gesellschaft.
Engels, Jens. 2007. Kleine Geschichte der Dritten französischen Republik.
Cologne: Böhlau.
Ermakoff, Ivan. 2008. Ruling Oneself Out. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Ertman, Thomas. 1998. Democracy and Dictatorship in Interwar Western Europe
Revisited. World Politics 50:3 (April): 475–505.
Esser, James. 1998. Review of Groupthink Research. Organizational Behavior
and Human Decision Processes 73: 2/3 (February–March): 116–41.
Evans, Richard. 2003. The Coming of the Third Reich. New York: Penguin.
Evening Star (Washington, DC). 1940. Washington Observations. June 14.
Archived in Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de História
Contemporânea do Brasil (CPDOC), Fundação Getúlio Vargas, Rio de
Janeiro. GVc 1940.06.11 (p. 28 – Documentos).
1937. Is It Fascism? December 7. Archived in Centro de Pesquisa e
Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brasil (CPDOC), Fundação
Getúlio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro. GVc 1937.12.07 (vol XXVIII-80).
 Bibliography 341

Evola, Julius. (1938) 2015. Articles on Codreanu and the Iron Guard. Appendix
in Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. The Prison Notes, 61–104. Helsingborg: Logik
Förlag.
Falcoff, Mark. 1993. Orange Juice with General Perón. American Scholar 62:3
(Summer): 383–402.
Falter, Jürgen, and Dirk Hänisch. (1986) 2013. Die Anfälligkeit von Arbeitern
gegenüber der NSDAP. Historical Social Research–Supplement 25: 145–93.
Farneti, Paolo. 1978. Social Conflict, Parliamentary Fragmentation, Institutional
Shift, and the Rise of Fascism: Italy. In Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan, eds. The
Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Europe, 3–33. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press.
Fausto, Boris. 2006. Getúlio Vargas. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras.
2001. O Pensamento Nacionalista Autoritário. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar.
Fayet, Jean-François. 2014. 1919. In Stephen Smith, ed. Oxford Handbook of the
History of Communism, 109–24. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Feldmanis, Inesis. 2001. Umgestaltungsprozesse im Rahmen des Ulmanis-Regimes
in Lettland 1934–1940. In Erwin Oberländer, ed. Autoritäre Regime in
Ostmittel- und Südosteuropa 1919–1944, 215–48. Paderborn: Schöningh.
Ferro, António. 1939. Salazar. London: Faber and Faber.
Finchelstein, Federico. 2019. Corporatism, Dictatorship, and Populism in
Argentina. In António Costa Pinto and Federico Finchelstein, eds.
Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Europe and Latin America, 237–53.
London: Routledge.
2017. From Fascism to Populism in History. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
2010. Transatlantic Fascism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Finnemore, Martha, and Kathryn Sikkink. 2001. The Constructivist Research
Program. Annual Review of Political Science 4: 391–416.
Fischer-Galati, Stephen. 1971. Fascism in Romania. In Peter Sugar, ed. Native
Fascism in the Successor States, 1918–1945, 112–21. Santa Barbara, CA:
ABC-Clio.
Foot, John. 1997. ‘White Bolsheviks’? Historical Journal 40:2 (June): 415–33.
Furet, François. 1999. The Passing of an Illusion. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Gabriel, Pere. 2016. Las democracias del anarquismo y del anarcosindicalismo
ante 1931. In Francisco Morente, Jordi Pomés, and Josep Puigsech, eds. La
Rabia y la Idea, 105–20. Zaragoza: Universidad de Zaragoza.
Gallagher, Tom. 1990. Conservatism, Dictatorship, and Fascism in Portugal. In
Martin Blinkhorn, ed. Fascists and Conservatives, 157–75. London:
Routledge.
Gallego, Ferran. 2016. Nacionalsindicalismo y Contrarrevolución (1931–36). In
Francisco Morente, Jordi Pomés, and Josep Puigsech, eds. La Rabia y la Idea,
173–202. Zaragoza: Universidad de Zaragoza.
Gamboa, Laura. 2017. Opposition at the Margins. Comparative Politics 49:4
(July): 457–77.
Gasteiger, Daniela. 2014. From Friends to Foes. In Larry Jones, ed. The German
Right in the Weimar Republic, 48–78. New York: Berghahn.
342 Bibliography

Gatrell, Peter. 2010. War after the War. In John Horne, ed. A Companion to
World War I, 558–75. London: Blackwell.
Geddes, Barbara, Joseph Wright, and Erica Frantz. 2018. How Dictatorships
Work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gentile, Emilio. 2012. Paramilitary Violence in Italy. In Robert Gerwarth and
John Horne, eds. War in Peace, 85–103. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2005. La vía italiana al totalitarismo. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI.
2001. I Fasci Italiani all’Estero. In Stein Larsen, ed. Fascism Outside Europe,
95–115. Boulder, CO: Social Science Monographs.
Gentile, Fabio. 2014. O Fascismo como Modelo. Mediações 19:1 (January–June):
84–101.
Geppert, Dominik. 2016. Ernst Nolte. Deutsche Welle (August 18).
Germani, Gino. 1978. Authoritarianism, Fascism, and National Populism. New
Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Gerschewski, Johannes, and Alexander Schmotz. 2011. Contrary or
Contradictory? Autocracies and Democracies between Dichotomy and
Gradation. Paper for 6th General Conference, European Consortium for
Political Research, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, August 26.
Gerwarth, Robert. 2018. Die grösste aller Revolutionen. Munich: Siedler.
2016. The Vanquished. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Gerwarth, Robert, and John Horne. 2012a. Bolshevism as Fantasy. In Gerwarth
and Horne, eds. War in Peace, 40–51. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2012b. Paramilitarism in Europe after the Great War. In Gerwarth and Horne,
eds. War in Peace, 1–18. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gest, Justin. 2016. The New Minority. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Geyer, Curt. 1976. Die revolutionäre Illusion, ed. Wolfgang Benz and Hermann
Graml. Stuttgart: DVA.
Geyer, Michael. 2010. Zwischen Krieg und Nachkrieg. In Alexander Gallus, ed.
Die vergessene Revolution von 1918/19, 187–222. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht.
Gigerenzer, Gerd. 2006. Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire. Risk Analysis 26:2
(April): 347–51.
Gil Robles, José María. (1968) 2006. No fue posible la paz. Madrid: Ariel.
Gilovich, Thomas, Dale Griffin, and Daniel Kahneman, eds. 2002. Heuristics and
Biases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ginsberg, Benjamin, and Martin Shefter. 2002. Politics by Other Means, 3rd ed.
New York: Norton.
Gioielli, Emily. 2015. “White Misrule.” Dissertation, Central European
University, Budapest.
Goebbels, Joseph. 2008. Tagebücher, 4th ed. Ralf Reuth. Munich: Piper.
Goeschel, Christian. 2012. Italia docet? European History Quarterly 42:3 (July)
480–92.
Goldenberg, Boris. 1971. Kommunismus in Lateinamerika. Stuttgart:
Kohlhammer.
Goldinger, Walter, ed. 1980. Protokolle des Klubvorstandes der
Christlichsozialen Partei, 1932–1934. Munich: Oldenbourg.
 Bibliography 343

González Calleja, Eduardo. 2011. Los Contrarrevolucionarios. Madrid: Alianza

Editorial.
2005. La España de Primo de Rivera. Madrid: Alianza Editorial.
González Cuevas, Pedro. 2012. On the Irrelevance of Fascism in Spain. In Manuel
Álvarez Tardío and Fernando del Rey Reguillo, eds. The Spanish Second
Republic Revisited, 239–55. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press.
Grandío Seoane, Emilio. 2016. CEDA: Movilización católica y democracia. In
Francisco Morente, Jordi Pomés, and Josep Puigsech, eds. La Rabia y la Idea,
121–46. Zaragoza: Universidad de Zaragoza.
Gregor, James. 1979. Italian Fascism and Developmental Dictatorship. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.
Griffin, Roger. 2018. Fascism: An Introduction. Cambridge: Polity.
2007. Modernism and Fascism. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
1993. The Nature of Fascism. London: Routledge.
Grosser, Alfred. 1974. Geschichte Deutschlands seit 1945. Munich: DTV.
Groueff, Stephane. 1987. Crown of Thorns. Lanham, MD: Madison.
Guarnieri, Luigi. 2007. El Perú. In Eugenia Scarzanella, ed. Fascistas en América
del Sur, 93–165. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Gunitsky, Seva. 2017. Aftershocks: Great Powers and Domestic Reforms.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
2014. From Shocks to Waves. International Organization 68:3 (June): 561–97.
Gunther, John. 1934. Dollfuss and the Future of Austria. Foreign Affairs 12:2
(January): 306–18.
Haapala, Pertti, and Marko Tikka. 2012. Revolution, Civil War, and Terror in
Finland in 1918. In Robert Gerwarth and John Horne, eds. War in Peace,
72–84. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Haase, Ernst, ed. 1929. Hugo Haase. Berlin-Frohnau: Ottens.
Hagemann, Albrecht. 2001. The Diffusion of German Nazism. In Stein Larsen, ed.
Fascism Outside Europe, 71–94. Boulder, CO: Social Science Monographs.
Hagenloh, Paul. 2016. Discipline, Terror, and the State. In Nicholas Doumanis,
ed. Oxford Handbook of European History 1914–1945, 343–61. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Haggard, Stephan, and Robert Kaufman. 2016. Dictators and Democrats.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Halperin Donghi, Tulio. 2003. La Argentina y la tormenta del mundo. Buenos
Aires: Siglo XXI.
Hamalainen, Pekka. 1979. In Time of Storm. Albany: State University of New
York Press.
Hamilton, Alastair. 1971. The Appeal of Fascism. New York: Macmillan.
Hanebrink, Paul. 2006. In Defense of Christian Hungary. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press.
Hanfstaengl, Ernst. (1957) 2005. The Unknown Hitler. London: Gibson Square.
Hanovs, Deniss, and Valdis Tēraudkalns. 2013. Ultimate Freedom – No Choice.
Leiden: Brill.
Hanson, Stephen. 2010. The Founding of the Third French Republic.
Comparative Political Studies 43:8/9 (August/September): 1023–58.
344 Bibliography

Hartz, Louis. 1955. The Liberal Tradition in America. New York: Harcourt,
Brace.
Haynes, Rebecca. 2014. Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. In Rebecca Haynes and
Martin Rady, eds. In the Shadow of Hitler, 169–87. London: Tauris.
2013. Die Ritualisierung des “Neuen Menschen.” In Armin Heinen and Oliver
Schmitt, eds. Inszenierte Gegenmacht von rechts, 89–112. Munich:
Oldenbourg.
2007. Reluctant Allies? Slavonic and East European Review 85:1 (January):
105–34.
Heinen, Armin. 2013. Wahl-Maschine. In Armin Heinen and Oliver Schmitt, eds.
Inszenierte Gegenmacht von rechts, 130–54. Munich: Oldenbourg.
1986. Die Legion “Erzengel Michael” in Rumänien. Munich: Oldenbourg.
Hennessy, Alistair. 1976. Fascism and Populism in Latin America. In Walter
Laqueur, ed. Fascism: A Reader’s Guide, 255–94. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Hentschke, Jens. 1996. Estado Novo: Genesis und Konsolidierung der brasilia-
nischen Diktatur von 1937. Saarbrücken: Verlag für Entwicklungspolitik.
Herf, Jeffrey. 2017. Conflicting Perspectives on Timothy Snyder’s Black Earth:
Review by Jeffrey Herf. Journal of Cold War Studies 19:4 (Fall); 229–33.
1984. Reactionary Modernism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Herold-Schmidt, Hedwig. 2004. Vom Ende der Ersten zum Scheitern der Zweiten
Republik. In Peer Schmidt, ed. Kleine Geschichte Spaniens, 329–442.
Stuttgart: Reclam.
Herriot, Édouard. 1934. The Future of French Democracy. Foreign Affairs 12:4
(July): 604–9.
Hetherington, Marc, and Jonathan Weiler. 2009. Authoritarianism and
Polarization in American Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hilton, Stanley. 1972. Ação Integralista Brasileira. Luso-Brazilian Review 9:2
(Winter): 3–29.
Hilton-Young, Wayland. 1949. The Italian Left. London: Longmans, Green.
Hirschman, Albert. 1991. The Rhetoric of Reaction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Hitchins, Keith. 1994. Rumania 1866–1947. Oxford: Clarendon.
Hitler, Adolf. (1925) 2016. Mein Kampf, critical edition, 2 vols, ed. Christian
Hartmann et al. Munich: Institut für Zeitgeschichte.
Hoare, Marko. 2009. Yugoslavia and Its Successor States. In Richard Bosworth,
ed. Oxford Handbook of Fascism, 414–33. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hobsbawm, Eric. 1996. The Age of Extremes, 1914–1991. New York: Vintage.
Hochschild, Arlie. 2016. Strangers in Their Own Land. New York: New Press.
Hodgson, John. 1967. Communism in Finland. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Hoegner, Wilhelm. (1958) 1979. Die verratene Republik. Munich:
Nymphenburger.
Hoepke, Klaus. 1968. Die deutsche Rechte und der italienische Faschismus.
Düsseldorf: Droste.
Höß, Rudolf. (1947) 1963. Kommandant in Auschwitz, ed. Martin Broszat.
Munich: DTV.
 Bibliography 345

Hofmann, Reto. 2015. The Fascist Effect. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Horne, John. 2012. Defending Victory. In Robert Gerwarth and John Horne, eds.
War in Peace, 216–33. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Horthy, Nicholas. (1953) 2011. A Life for Hungary. Bronx, NY: ISHI.
Houlihan, Patrick. 2017. Global Catholicism’s Crusade against Communism,
1917–1963. In Stefan Rinke and Michael Wildt, eds. Revolutions and
Counter-Revolutions, 103–17. Frankfurt: Campus.
Huntington, Samuel. 1991. The Third Wave. Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press.
1968. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press.
Idle, Nadia, and Alex Nunns. 2011. Tweets from Tahrir. New York: OR Books.
Ihrig, Stefan. 2014. Atatürk in the Nazi Imagination. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Ilie, Mihaela. 2017. The Development of the Collaboration between King Carol II
and Armand Călinescu. Revista de Ştiinţe Politice 56: 80–89.
Inglehart, Ronald. 1977. The Silent Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Ioanid, Radu. 2009. Romania. In Richard Bosworth, ed. Oxford Handbook of
Fascism, 398–413. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2004. The Sacralised Politics of the Romanian Iron Guard. Totalitarian
Movements and Political Religions 5:3 (Winter): 419–53.
1992. Nicolae Iorga and Fascism. Journal of Contemporary History 27:3 (July):
467–92.
Iordachi, Constantin. 2014. A Continuum of Dictatorships. In António Costa
Pinto and Aristotle Kallis, eds. Rethinking Fascism and Dictatorship in
Europe, 233–71. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
2013. Faschismus, Charisma und Politik. In Armin Heinen and Oliver Schmitt,
eds. Inszenierte Gegenmacht von rechts, 20–68. Munich: Oldenbourg.
Iverson, Torben, and David Soskice. 2019. Democracy and Prosperity. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.
Jackisch, Barry. 2014. Continuity and Change on the German Right. In Larry
Jones, ed. The German Right in the Weimar Republic, 166–93. New York:
Berghahn.
Jäckel, Eberhard. 1981. Hitlers Weltanschauung, rev. ed. Stuttgart: DVA.
Jannack, Karl. 2012. We Fought in Bremen for the Council Republic. In Gabriel
Kuhn, ed. All Power to the Councils! 152–60. Oakland, CA: PM Press.
Janos, Andrew. 1982. The Politics of Backwardness in Hungary. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
1970. The One-Party State and Social Mobilization. In Samuel Huntington and
Clement Moore, eds. Authoritarian Politics in Modern Society, 204–36. New
York: Basic Books.
Jenkins, Brian. 2006. The Six Fevrier 1934. French History 20:3 (August):
333–51.
Jerez Mir, Miguel, and Javier Luque. 2014. State and Regime in Early Francoism.
In António Costa Pinto and Aristotle Kallis, eds. Rethinking Fascism and
Dictatorship in Europe, 176–97. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
346 Bibliography

Jörgensen, Hans. 2006. The Inter-War Land Reforms in Estonia, Finland, and
Bulgaria. Scandinavian Economic History Review 54:1 (July): 64–97.
Jones, Larry. 2014a. Conservative Antisemitism in the Weimar Republic. In Larry
Jones, ed. The German Right in the Weimar Republic, 79–107. New York:
Berghahn.
2014b. The German Right in the Weimar Republic. New York: Berghahn.
Jones, Mark. 2016. Founding Weimar. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Kahneman, Daniel. 2011. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus,
and Giroux.
Kahneman, Daniel, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky, eds. 1982. Judgment under
Uncertainty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kahneman, Daniel, and Amos Tversky, eds. 2000. Choices, Values, and Frames.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kahneman, Daniel, and Amos Tversky, 1982. Subjective Probability. In Daniel
Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky, eds, Judgment under
Uncertainty, 32–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kailitz, Steffen. 2017. Nach dem “Großen Krieg.” In Steffen Kailitz, ed. Nach dem
“Großen Krieg”, 27–50. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Kalela, Jorma. 1976. Right-Wing Radicalism in Finland during the Interwar
Period. Scandinavian Journal of History 1–4: 105–24.
Kallis, Aristotle. 2017. ‘Ideas in Flux.’ In António Costa Pinto, ed. Corporatism
and Fascism, 272–91. London: Routledge.
2016. Fascism and the Right in Interwar Europe. In Nicholas Doumanis, ed.
Oxford Handbook of European History 1914–1945, 301–22. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
2014. The ‘Fascist Effect.’ In António Costa Pinto and Aristotle Kallis, eds.
Rethinking Fascism and Dictatorship in Europe, 13–41. Houndmills:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Kalyvas, Stathis. 2006. The Logic of Violence in Civil Wars. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Kann, Robert. 1978. Historischer Prozeß und Restaurationsproblem. In Karl-
Georg Faber and Christian Meier, eds. Historische Prozesse, 290–312.
Munich: DTV.
Karchmar, Lucien. 1983. Communism in Romania, 1918–1921. In Ivo Banac, ed.
The Effects of World War I, 127–87. New York: Atlantic Research and
Publications.
Karvonen, Lauri. 2000. Finland. In Dirk Berg-Schlosser and Jeremy Mitchell, eds.
Conditions of Democracy in Europe, 1919–39, 139–56. Houndmills:
Macmillan.
Kasekamp, Andres. 2017a. Corporatism and Authoritarianism in the Baltics. In
António Costa Pinto, ed. Corporatism and Fascism, 257–71. London:
Routledge.
2017b. Skype conversation about the Vaps movement and the 1934 coup,
Tartu, Estonia – Austin, Texas (May 17).
2015. Fascism by Popular Initiative. Fascism 4:2: 155–68.
2010. A History of the Baltic States. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
 Bibliography 347

2000. The Radical Right in Interwar Estonia. Houndmills: Macmillan.

1999. Radical Right-Wing Movements in the North-East Baltic. Journal of
Contemporary History 34:4 (October): 587–600.
1993. The Estonian Veterans’ League. Journal of Baltic Studies 24:3 (Fall):
263–68.
Kasekamp, Andres, and Rein Toomla. 2012. Parliamentarism in Estonia. Studia
Universitatis Cibiniensis. Series Historica 9: 31–49.
Kater, Michael. 2004. Hitler Youth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kautsky, Karl. (1918) 1981. Kautsky gegen Lenin, ed. Peter Lübbe. Berlin (West):
Verlag J.H.W. Dietz Nachfolger.
Kay, Hugh. 1970. Salazar and Modern Portugal. New York: Hawthorn.
Keil, Wilhelm. 1947. Erlebnisse eines Sozialdemokraten, vol. 2. Stuttgart: DVA.
Kenez, Peter. 1971. Coalition Politics in the Hungarian Soviet Republic. In
Andrew Janos and William Slottman, eds. Revolution in Perspective,
61–84. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kennedy, Sean. 2014. Defending Christian Civilization. In Samuel Kalman and
Sean Kennedy, eds. The French Right between the Wars, 180–94. New York:
Berghahn.
Kershaw, Ian. 2015. To Hell and Back: Europe 1914–1949. London: Penguin.
2000. Hitler, vol. 1. New York: Norton.
1987. The ‘Hitler Myth’. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kessler, Harry. 1999. Berlin in Lights: Diaries, ed. Charles Kessler. New York:
Grove.
Kestel, Laurent. 2014. Were French Elites Allergic to Fascism? In Samuel Kalman
and Sean Kennedy, eds. The French Right between the Wars, 195–209. New
York: Berghahn.
Kindermann, Gottfried-Karl. 1984. Hitler’s Defeat in Austria, 1933–1934.
London: Hurst.
Kirby, David. 2014. A Scandinavian Erratic amidst the Ruins of Empire. In
Rebecca Haynes and Martin Rady, eds. In the Shadow of Hitler, 278–94.
London: Tauris.
2006. Concise History of Finland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kirby, David. ed. 1975. Finland and Russia, 1808–1920: Documents. London:
Macmillan.
Kirk, Tim. 2003. Fascism and Austrofascism. In Günter Bischof, Anton Pelinka, and
Alexander Lassner, eds. The Dollfuss/Schuschnigg Era in Austria. Contemporary
Austrian Studies vol. 11, 10–31. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Kissane, Bill. 2004. Democratization, State Formation, and Civil War in Finland
and Ireland. Comparative Political Studies 37:8 (October): 969–85.
Kissinger, Henry. (1957) 2013. A World Restored. N.p.: Echo Point.
Klein, Marcus. 2004. Our Brazil Will Awake! Ação Integralista Brasileira.
Amsterdam: Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation.
Klemperer, Victor. 2015. Man möchte immer weinen und lachen in einem. Berlin:
Aufbau.
Kluge, Ulrich. 1985. Die deutsche Revolution 1918/1919. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Knox, MacGregor. 2007. To the Threshold of Power, 1922/33, vol. 1.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
348 Bibliography

König, Mario. 1998. Politik und Gesellschaft im 20. Jahrhundert. In Manfred

Hettling, Mario König, et al. Kleine Geschichte der Schweiz, 21–90.
Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Köpernik, Gerhard. 2014. Faschisten im KZ. Berlin: Frank & Timme.
Kónya, Sándor. 1969. To the Attempt to Establish Totalitarian Fascism in
Hungary, 1934–35. Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 15:
3/4 (July): 299–334.
Kopstein, Jeffrey, and Jason Wittenberg. 2010. Beyond Dictatorship and
Democracy. Comparative Political Studies 43:8/9 (August/September):
1089–1118.
Kolb, Eberhard. 1979. 1918/19: Die steckengebliebene Revolution. In Carola
Stern and Heinrich August Winkler, eds. Wendepunkte deutscher
Geschichte, 1848–1945, 87–109. Frankfurt: Fischer.
1968. Rätewirklichkeit und Räte-Ideologie in der deutschen Revolution von
1918/19. In Helmut Neubauer, ed. Deutschland und die Russische
Revolution, 94–110. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.
Konstantin Päts Fund. 1974. Estonia: Story of a Nation. New York: Estonian
House.
Korzeniewicz, Roberto. 2000. Democracy and Dictatorship in Latin America
during the Interwar Period. Studies in Comparative International
Development 35:1 (Spring): 41–72.
Kott, Matthew. 2015. Latvia’s Pērkonkrusts. Fascism 4:2: 169–93.
Kramer, Alan. 2009. The First World War as Cultural Trauma. In Richard
Bosworth, ed. Oxford Handbook of Fascism, 32–51. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Kubitschek, Juscelino. 1979. Depoimento 1976. Rio de Janeiro: Centro de
Pesquisa e Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brasil (CPDOC),
Fundação Getúlio Vargas.
Kuckuk, Peter. 2010. Revolution, Rätebewegung und Räterepublik in Bremen. In
Peter Kuckuck, ed. Die Revolution 1918/1919 in Bremen. Bremen: Temmen.
Kuin, Simon. 1993a. O Braço Longo de Mussolini. Penélope 11: 7–20.
1993b. A Mocidade Portuguesa nos anos 30. Análise Social 28:122: 555–88.
1990. Fascist Italy and Salazar’s Portugal, 1926–1936. Yearbook of European
Studies, vol. 3: Italy – Europe, 101–18.
Kun, Béla. 2011. The Selected Works of Bela Kun. New York: Prism Key Press.
Kuran, Timur, and Cass Sunstein. 1999. Availability Cascades and Risk
Regulation. Stanford Law Review 51:4 (April): 683–768.
Kurzman, Charles. 2004. Can Understanding Undermine Explanation?
Philosophy of the Social Sciences 34:3 (September): 328–51.
Lannon, Frances. 2007. Iberia. In Robert Gerwarth, ed. Twisted Paths: Europe
1914–1945, 136–60. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Larsen, Stein. 2011. Decomposition and Recomposition of Theories. In António
Costa Pinto, ed. Rethinking the Nature of Fascism, 13–52. Houndmills:
Palgrave Macmillan.
2001. Was there Fascism outside Europe? In Stein Larsen, ed. Fascism outside
Europe, 705–818. Boulder, CO: Social Science Monographs.
Ledebour, Georg. 1954. Georg Ledebour, ed. Minna Ledebour. Zürich: Europa.
 Bibliography 349

Ledesma Ramos, Ramiro. (1935) 2017. ¿Fascismo en España? Córdoba:

Almuzara.
Lefebvre, Georges. 1979. Die Große Furcht von 1789. In Irmgard Hartig, ed.
Geburt der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft, 88–135. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Lenin, Vladimir. 1967. Aus den Schriften 1895–1923, ed. Hermann Weber.
Munich: DTV.
Leonhard, Jörn. 2017. 1917–1920 and the Global Revolution of Rising
Expectations. In Stefan Rinke and Michael Wildt, eds. Revolutions and
Counter-Revolutions, 31–51. Frankfurt: Campus.
Lepsius, Rainer. 1978. From Fragmented Party Democracy to Government by
Emergency Decree. In Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan, eds. The Breakdown of
Democratic Regimes: Europe, 34–79. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press.
Levey, Jules. 1973. Georges Valois and the Faisceau. French Historical Studies 8:2
(Autumn): 279–304.
Levi, Paul. (1921) 2009. Our Path: Against Putschism. Historical Materialism
17:3: 111–45.
Levine, Robert. 1980. Perspectives on the Mid-Vargas Years, 1934–1937. Journal
of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 22:1 (February): 57–80.
1970. The Vargas Regime, 1934–1938. New York: Columbia University Press.
Leviné-Meyer, Rosa. 1973. Leviné: A Revolutionary. Farnborough: Saxon House.
Levitsky, Steven, and James Loxton. 2013. Populism and Competitive
Authoritarianism in the Andes. Democratization 20:1 (March): 107–36.
Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan Way. 2010. Competitive Authoritarianism.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Levitsky, Steven, and Daniel Ziblatt. 2018. How Democracies Die. New York:
Crown.
Levy, Jack. 2013. Psychology and Foreign Policy Decision-Making. In Leonie
Huddy, David Sears, and Jack Levy, eds. Oxford Handbook of Political
Psychology, 301–33. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lewis, Paul. 1980. Was Perón a Fascist? Journal of Politics 42:1 (February):
242–56.
Liebknecht, Karl. 1974. Gesammelte Reden und Schriften, vol. 9: Mai 1916 bis
15. Januar 1919. Berlin (Ost): Dietz.
Lieven, Anatol. 1993. The Baltic Revolution. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press.
Lill, Rudolf. 2002. Das faschistische Italien. In Wolfgang Altgeld, ed. Kleine
italienische Geschichte, 371–429. Stuttgart: Reclam.
Lilla, Mark. 2016. The Shipwrecked Mind. New York: New York Review Books.
Lima, J. Lobo d’Avila. 1937. Relatório do Chefe de Missão No. 67. Rome, March
12. Archived in Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Lisbon. PT/TT/AOS/
NE-4E, pt.3, 2a subdivisão, caixa 380, folhas 394–453.
1935. Dopolavoro. Serie A, No. 53 (report by Portuguese Ambassador in Italy).
Rome, May 2. Archived in Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Lisbon.
PT/TT/AOS/NE-4E, pt.1, 19a subdivisão, caixa 380, folhas 83–88.
Lima, Valentina da Rocha. 1986. Getúlio: História Oral. CPDOC/Fundação
Getúlio Vargas. Rio de Janeiro: Record.
350 Bibliography

Lindemann, Albert. 1974. The ‘Red Years,’ 1919–1921. Berkeley: University of

California Press.
Linz, Juan. 2002. Fascism, Breakdown of Democracy, Authoritarian and
Totalitarian Regimes. Madrid: Instituto Juan March, Working Paper 2002/
179.
2000. Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
1990. The Perils of Presidentialism. Journal of Democracy 1:1 (Winter): 51–69.
1980. Political Space and Fascism as a Late-Comer. In Stein Larsen, Bernt
Hagtvet, and Jan Myklebust, eds. Who Were the Fascists, 153–89. Oslo:
Universitetsforlaget.
1978a. The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis, Breakdown, and
Reequilibration. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
1978b. From Great Hopes to Civil War in Spain. In Juan Linz and Alfred
Stepan, eds. The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Europe, 142–215.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
1976. Some Notes toward a Comparative Study of Fascism in Sociological
Historical Perspective. In Walter Laqueur, ed. Fascism: A Reader’s Guide,
3–121. Berkeley: University of California Press.
1964. An Authoritarian Regime: Spain. In Erik Allardt and Yrjö Littunen, eds.
Cleavages, Ideologies and Party Systems, 291–342. Helsinki: Transactions of
the Westermarck Society.
Linz, Juan, and Alfred Stepan. 1996. Problems of Democratic Transition and
Consolidation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Linz, Juan, and Arturo Valenzuela, eds. 1994. The Failure of Presidential
Democracy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Lipset, Seymour. 1959. Some Social Requisites of Democracy. American Political
Science Review 53:1 (March): 69–105.
Livezeanu, Irina. 1990. Fascists and Conservatives in Romania. In Martin
Blinkhorn, ed. Fascists and Conservatives, 218–39. London: Routledge.
Loewenstein, Karl. 1935a. Autocracy versus Democracy in Contemporary
Europe, I. American Political Science Review 29:4 (August): 571–93.
1935b. Autocracy versus Democracy in Contemporary Europe, II. American
Political Science Review 29:5 (October): 755–84.
Lopata, Raimundas. 2001. Die Entstehung des autoritären Regimes in Litauen
1926. In Erwin Oberländer, ed. Autoritäre Regime in Ostmittel- und
Südosteuropa 1919–1944, 95–141. Paderborn: Schöningh.
López Villaverde, Ángel. 2017. La Segunda República (1931–36). Madrid: Sílex
Ediciones.
Lorman, Thomas. 2006. Counter-Revolutionary Hungary, 1920–1925. Boulder,
CO: East European Monographs.
Luban, Ottokar. 2017. The Role of the Spartacist Group. In Ralf Hoffrogge and
Norman LaPorte, eds. Weimar Communism as Mass Movement, 45–65.
London: Lawrence and Wishart.
Lucena, Manuel de. 1976. A Evolução do Sistema Corporativo Português, vol.1:
O Salazarismo. Lisbon: Perspectivas e Realidades.
Ludecke, Kurt. (1937) 2013. I Knew Hitler. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military.
 Bibliography 351

Luebbert, Gregory. 1991. Liberalism, Fascism, or Social Democracy. Oxford:

Oxford University Press.
Lukowski, Jerzy, and Hubert Zawadzki. 2006. A Concise History of Poland, 2nd
ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Luostarinen, Heikki. 1989. Finnish Russophobia. Journal of Peace Research 26:2
(May): 123–37.
Luxemburg, Rosa. 1970. Schriften zur Theorie der Spontaneität. Reinbek:
Rowohlt.
(1918) 2012. National Assembly or Council Government? In Gabriel Kuhn, ed.
All Power to the Councils! 113–15. Oakland, CA: PM Press.
Lyttelton, Adrian. 2004. The Seizure of Power, 3rd ed. London: Routledge.
Macarro, José. 2012. The Socialists and Revolution. In Manuel Álvarez Tardío
and Fernando del Rey Reguillo, eds. The Spanish Second Republic Revisited,
40–57. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press.
Maciel Filho, J.S. 1937. Letter to Oswaldo Aranha, Brazilian Ambassador in
Washington. Rio de Janeiro, September 1. Archived in Centro de Pesquisa e
Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brasil (CPDOC), Fundação
Getúlio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro. GVc 1937.09.01 (vol XXVII-36).
MacKay, Joseph, and Christopher LaRouche. 2018. Why is There No
Reactionary International Theory? International Studies Quarterly 62:2
(June): 234–44.
Maderthaner, Wolfgang, and Michaela Maier, eds. 2004. “Der Führer bin ich
selbst”. Vienna: Löcker.
Madureira, Arnaldo. 2010. Salazar: A Instauração da Ordem. Lisbon: Livros
Horizonte.
2000. A Formação Histórica do Salazarismo. Lisbon: Livros Horizonte.
Mainwaring, Scott, and Aníbal Pérez-Liñán. 2013. Democracies and
Dictatorships in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Maio, Marcos, and Roney Cytrynowicz. 2007. Ação Integralista Brasileira. In
Jorge Ferreira and Lucilia Delgado, eds. O Brasil Republicano, 2nd ed.,
vol. 2: O Nacional-Estatismo, 39–61. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira.
Mamatey, Victor. 1973. The Development of Czechoslovak Democracy,
1920–1938. In Victor Mamatey and Radomír Luža, eds. A History of the
Czechoslovak Republic, 1918–1948, 99–166. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Maner, Hans-Christian. 2001. Voraussetzungen der autoritären Monarchie in
Rumänien. In Erwin Oberländer, ed. Autoritäre Regime in Ostmittel- und
Südosteuropa 1919–1944, 431–69. Paderborn: Schöningh.
Mann, Michael. 2004. Fascists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Manoilescu, Mihail. 1934. Le siècle du corporatisme. Paris: Alcan.
March, James, and Herbert Simon. 1993. Organizations, 2nd ed. Cambridge,
MA: Blackwell.
Markwick, Roger. 2009. Communism: Fascism’s ‘Other’? In Richard Bosworth,
ed. Oxford Handbook of Fascism, 339–61. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Martinho, Francisco Palomanes. 2012. A Extrema Direita Portuguesa. Studia
Histórica – Historia Contemporánea 30: 95–114.
352 Bibliography

2007. Corporativismo e trabalho. In Francisco Palomanes Martinho and

António Costa Pinto, eds., O Corporativismo em Português, 45–77. Rio de
Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira.
Martinho, Francisco Palomanes, and António Costa Pinto, eds. 2007.
O Corporativismo em Português. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira.
Marx, Karl. (1852). 1971. Der achtzehnte Brumaire des Louis Napoleon.
Frankfurt: Verlag Marxistische Blätter.
Matthias, Erich. 1972. Der Rat der Volksbeauftragten. In Eberhard Kolb, ed.
Vom Kaiserreich zur Weimarer Republik, 103–19. Cologne: Kiepenheuer &
Witsch.
Mayer, Arno. 1971. Dynamics of Counterrevolution in Europe, 1870–1956. New
York: Harper & Row.
Mazower, Mark. 2000. Dark Continent. New York: Vintage.
McAdams, James. 2017. Vanguard of the Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
McCann, Frank. 1969. Vargas and the Destruction of the Brazilian Integralista
and Nazi Parties. The Americas 26:1 (July): 15–34.
McDermott, Rose. 2004. Political Psychology in International Relations. Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
McMeekin, Sean. 2015. The Ottoman Endgame. New York: Penguin.
Meissner, Otto. 1950. Staatssekretär unter Ebert, Hindenburg, Hitler, 2nd ed.
Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe.
Melo, Martinho Nobre de. 1936. Relatório No. 9A (from Portuguese Embassy in
Brazil). Rio de Janeiro, March 6. Archived in Arquivo Nacional da Torre do
Tombo, Lisbon. PT/TT/AOS/NE-4D, pt.4, 5a subdivisão, caixa 379, folhas
264–73.
Melograni, Piero. 1976. The Cult of the Duce in Mussolini’s Italy. Journal of
Contemporary History 11:4 (October): 221–37.
Meneses, Filipe Ribeiro de. 2012. Slander, Ideological Differences, or Academic
Debate? E-Journal of Portuguese History 10:1.
2009. Salazar. New York: Enigma Books.
Mergel, Thomas. 2011. Dictatorship and Democracy, 1918–1939. In Helmut
Smith, ed. Oxford Handbook of Modern German History, 422–52.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Merz, Kai. 1995. Das Schreckbild: Deutschland und der Bolschewismus. Berlin:
Propyläen.
Mesquita, António. 2007. Salazar na História Política do seu Tempo. Lisbon:
Editorial Caminho.
Metcalf, Lee. 1998. The Evolution of Presidential Power in Estonia, 1920–1992.
Journal of Baltic Studies 29:4 (Winter): 333–52.
Meyer, John, and Brian Rowan. 1977. Institutionalized Organizations. American
Journal of Sociology 83:2 (September): 340–63.
Michalka, Wolfgang, and Gottfried Niedhart, eds. 1980. Die ungeliebte Republik.
Munich: DTV.
Middleton, Roger. 2016. The Great Depression in Europe. In Nicholas Doumanis,
ed. Oxford Handbook of European History 1914–1945, 179–206. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
 Bibliography 353

Miller, Susanne, and Heinrich Potthoff. 1986. A History of German Social

Democracy. Leamington Spa: Berg.
Misiunas, Romuald. 1970. Fascist Tendencies in Lithuania. Slavonic and East
European Review 48:110 (January): 88–109.
Møller, Jørgen, Svend-Erik Skaaning, and Jakob Tolstrup. 2017. International
Influences and Democratic Regression in Interwar Europe. Government and
Opposition 52:4 (October): 559–86.
Mommsen, Hans. 2016. Aufstieg und Untergang der Republik von Weimar,
1918-1933, 4th ed. Berlin: Ullstein.
Mommsen, Wolfgang. 1979. 1933: Die Flucht in den Führerstaat. In Carola Stern
and Heinrich August Winkler, eds. Wendepunkte deutscher Geschichte,
1848–1945, 111–38. Frankfurt: Fischer.
Moore, Barrington. 1978. Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt.
White Plains, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
1966. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Boston, MA: Beacon
Press.
Moraes, Evaristo de. 1978. O Problema do Sindicato Único no Brasil. São Paulo:
Alfa-Omega.
Morgan, David. 1982. Ernst Däumig and the German Revolution. Central
European History 15:4 (December): 303–31.
Morgan, Philip. 2009. Corporatism and the Economic Order. In Richard
Bosworth, ed. Oxford Handbook of Fascism, 150–65. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Mosse, George. 1999. The Fascist Revolution. New York: Howard Fertig.
1966. The Genesis of Fascism. Journal of Contemporary History 1:1 (January):
14–26.
Moţa, Ion, and Vasile Marin. (1923–1937) 2019. Under the Southern Cross.
Zvolen: Taiarch.
Mounk, Yascha. 2018. The People vs. Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Mühsam, Erich. 1920/29. Von Eisner bis Leviné. In Teo Panther, ed. 2007. Alle
Macht den Räten! Vol. 1: Novemberrevolution 1918, 112–76. Münster:
Unrast.
1919. Proletarier Bayerns vereinigt euch! In Teo Panther, ed. 2007. Alle Macht
den Räten! Vol. 1: Novemberrevolution 1918, 246–47. Münster: Unrast.
Müller, Florin. 2001. Autoritäre Regime in Rumänien 1938-1944. In Erwin
Oberländer, ed. Autoritäre Regime in Ostmittel- und Südosteuropa 1919-
1944, 471–98. Paderborn: Schöningh.
Müller, Jan-Werner. 2011. Contesting Democracy. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Müller, Richard. 1926. Der Bürgerkrieg in Deutschland. Vienna: Malik.
1925. Die Novemberrevolution. Vienna: Malik.
1924. Vom Kaiserreich zur Republik. Vienna: Malik Verlag.
Müller, Werner. 2010. Die KPD in ihrem ersten Jahr. In Alexander Gallus, ed. Die
vergessene Revolution von 1918/19, 160–86. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht.
Müller-Franken, Hermann. 1928. Die November-Revolution. Berlin: Bücherkreis.
354 Bibliography

Mussolini, Benito. (1932) 2018. The Doctrine of Fascism, translated by Jane

Soames. N.p.: Zinghoora.
(1928) 1998. My Rise. Vol. 1 of My Rise and Fall. New York: Da Capo.
Nagy-Talavera, Nicholas. 1970. The Green Shirts and the Others. Stanford, CA:
Hoover Institution.
Neebe, Reinhard. 1983. Die Industrie und der 30. Januar 1933. In Karl Dietrich
Bracher, Manfred Funke, and Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, eds.
Nationalsozialistische Diktatur 1933–1945, 155–76. Bonn: Bundeszentrale
für politische Bildung.
Nettl, J. Peter. 1969. Rosa Luxemburg, abridged ed. New York: Schocken.
Neubauer, Helmut. 1958. München und Moskau, 1918/1919. Munich: Isar
Verlag.
Neumann, Franz. 1984. Behemoth. Frankfurt: Fischer.
Nielsen, Christian. 2014. Making Yugoslavs. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press.
Nolte, Ernst. 1987a. Der europäische Bürgerkrieg 1917–1945. Munich:
Propyläen.
1987b. Vergangenheit, die nicht vergehen will. In Ernst Piper, ed. 1987.
“Historikerstreit”, 39–47. Munich: Piper.
1987c. Zwischen Geschichtslegende und Revisionismus? In Ernst Piper,
ed. 1987. “Historikerstreit”, 13–35. Munich: Piper.
(1963) 1979. Der Faschismus in seiner Epoche, 5th ed. Munich: Piper.
Nord, Philip. 2015. France 1940. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Norris, Pippa, and Ronald Inglehart. 2019. Cultural Backlash. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Noske, Gustav. 1920. Von Kiel bis Kapp. Berlin: Verlag für Politik und
Wirtschaft.
Oberländer, Erwin, ed. 2001. Autoritäre Regime in Ostmittel- und Südosteuropa
1919–1944. Paderborn: Schöningh.
O'Donnell, Guillermo. 1994. Delegative Democracy. Journal of Democracy 5:1
(January): 55–69.
Orlow, Dietrich. 1982. 1918/19: A German Revolution. German Studies Review
5:2 (May): 187–203.
Ormos, Mária. 2007. Hungary in the Age of the Two World Wars. Boulder, CO:
Social Science Mongraphs.
Orzoff, Andrea. 2016. Interwar Democracy and the League of Nations. In
Nicholas Doumanis, ed. Oxford Handbook of European History
1914–1945, 261–81. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2009. Battle for the Castle. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Owen, John. 2010. The Clash of Ideas in World Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Pajur, Ago. 2001. Die “Legitimierung” der Diktatur des Präsidenten Päts. In
Erwin Oberländer, ed. Autoritäre Regime in Ostmittel- und Südosteuropa
1919–1944, 163–213. Paderborn: Schöningh.
Pammer, Thomas. 2013. Austrofaschismus und Jugend. In Florian Wenninger
and Lucile Dreidemy, eds. Das Dollfuß-/Schuschnigg-Regime 1933–1938,
395–410. Vienna: Böhlau.
 Bibliography 355

Papacosma, Victor. 2007. Ioannis Metaxas and the ‘Fourth of August’

Dictatorship in Greece. In Bernd Fischer, ed. Balkan Strongmen, 164–98.
West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press.
Papen, Franz von. 1952. Der Wahrheit eine Gasse. Munich: Paul List Verlag.
Parejo Fernández, José. 2012. The Mutation of Falangism, 1934–36. In Manuel
Álvarez Tardío and Fernando del Rey Reguillo, eds. The Spanish Second
Republic Revisited, 132–51. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press.
Parming, Tönu. 1975. The Collapse of Liberal Democracy and the Rise of
Authoritarianism in Estonia. London: Sage.
Paschen, Joachim. 2008. “Frieden, Freiheit, Brot!” Hamburg: DOBU.
Pasetti, Matteo. 2019. From Rome to Latin America. In António Costa Pinto and
Federico Finchelstein, eds. Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Europe and
Latin America, 143–58. London: Routledge.
Passmore, Kevin. 2009. The Ideological Origins of Fascism before 1914. In
Richard Bosworth, ed. Oxford Handbook of Fascism, 11–31. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Pasteur, Paul. 2007. Les États autoritaires en Europe, 1919–1945. Paris: Armand
Colin.
Patch, William. 1998. Heinrich Brüning and the Dissolution of the Weimar
Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pauley, Bruce. 1981. Hitler and the Forgotten Nazis. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press.
Paxton, Robert. 2009. Comparisons and Definitions. In Richard Bosworth, ed.
Oxford Handbook of Fascism, 547–65. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2005. Anatomy of Fascism. New York: Vintage.
Payne, Stanley. 2008. Franco and Hitler. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
2006. The Collapse of the Spanish Republic. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press.
1999. Fascism in Spain. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
1998. Fascist Italy and Spain, 1922–45. Mediterranean Historical Review 13:1–
2 (June): 99–115.
1995. A History of Fascism, 1914–1945. Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press.
Pelinka, Anton. 2017. Die gescheiterte Republik. Vienna: Böhlau.
Pelt, Mogens. 2014. Stages in the Development of the “Fourth of August” Regime
in Greece. In Rebecca Haynes and Martin Rady, eds. In the Shadow of Hitler,
198–218. London: Tauris.
Peniston-Bird, Corinna. 2009. Austria. In Richard Bosworth, ed. Oxford
Handbook of Fascism, 434–52. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pese, Walter. 1955. Hitler und Italien 1920–1926. Vierteljahreshefte für
Zeitgeschichte 3:2 (April): 113–26.
Pesendorfer, Alfred. 2012. Die gescheiterte Revolution: Deutschland 1918/19.
Hamburg: Tredition.
Petreu, Marta. 2005. An Infamous Past. Chicago: Ivan Dee.
Petrungaro, Stefano. 2017. Inter-war Yugoslavia Seen through Corporatist
Glasses. In António Costa Pinto, ed. Corporatism and Fascism, 236–56.
London: Routledge.
356 Bibliography

Peukert, Detlev. 1993. The Weimar Republic. New York: Hill and Wang.
Picker, Henry. 2009. Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier, 2nd ed.
Munich: Propyläen.
Pieck, Wilhelm. 1959. Gesammelte Reden und Schriften, Vol. 1: August 1904 bis
Januar 1919. Berlin (Ost): Dietz.
Pierson, Paul. 2000. Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of
Politics. American Political Science Review 95:2 (June): 251–67.
Pilsudska, Alexandra. 1941. Pilsudski: A Biography by His Wife. New York:
Dodd, Mead.
Piñeiro, Elena. 1997. La tradición nacionalista ante el peronismo. Buenos Aires:
A-Z.
Pinheiro, Paulo. 1991. Estratégias da Ilusão, 2nd ed. São Paulo: Companhia das
Letras.
Pinto, António Costa. 2019a. Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Latin
America. In António Costa Pinto and Federico Finchelstein, eds.
Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Europe and Latin America, 110–42.
London: Routledge.
2019b. Latin American Dictatorships in the Era of Fascism. London:
Routledge.
2017. Corporatism and ‘Organic Representation’ in European Dictatorships. In
António Costa Pinto, ed. Corporatism and Fascism, 3–41. London:
Routledge.
2014. Fascism, Corporatism and the Crafting of Authoritarian Institutions in
the Inter-War European Dictatorships. In António Costa Pinto and Aristotle
Kallis, eds. Rethinking Fascism and Dictatorship in Europe, 87–117.
Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
1995. Salazar’s Dictatorship and European Fascism. Boulder, CO: Social
Science Monographs.
1994. Os Camisas Azuis. Lisbon: Editorial Estampa.
Pinto, António Costa, ed. 2017. Corporatism and Fascism. London: Routledge.
Pinto, António Costa and Federico Finchelstein, eds. 2019. Authoritarianism and
Corporatism in Europe and Latin America. London: Routledge.
Pinto, António Costa, and Aristotle Kallis, eds. 2014. Rethinking Fascism and
Dictatorship in Europe. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
Piper, Ernst, ed. 1987. “Historikerstreit”. Munich: Piper.
Pittaway, Mark. 2009. Hungary. In Richard Bosworth, ed. Oxford Handbook of
Fascism, 380–97. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Plättner, Karl. (1919) 2012. The Council Idea in Germany. In Gabriel Kuhn, ed.
All Power to the Councils! 164–66. Oakland, CA: PM Press.
Plakans, Andrejs. 2011. Concise History of the Baltic States. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Pollard, John. 2017. Corporatism and Political Catholicism. In António Costa
Pinto, ed. Corporatism and Fascism, 42–59. London: Routledge.
Poppetrov, Nikolaj. 2001. Flucht aus der Demokratie. In Erwin Oberländer, ed.
Autoritäre Regime in Ostmittel- und Südosteuropa 1919–1944, 379–401.
Paderborn: Schöningh.
 Bibliography 357

1988. Der Übergang vom System der bürgerlichen Demokratie zum parteilosen
autoritären Regime in Bulgarien. Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas,
Neue Folge 36:4: 530–51.
Potash, Robert. 1980. The Army and Politics in Argentina 1945–1962. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press.
1969. The Army and Politics in Argentina 1928–1945. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press.
Prestes, Anita. 1991. Getúlio Vargas: Depoimento de Luiz Carlos Prestes. In José
Werneck da Silva, ed. O Feixe e o Prisma, vol. 1: O Feixe, 82–100. Rio de
Janeiro: Zahar.
Preston, Paul. 1990. Populism and Parasitism. In Martin Blinkhorn, ed. Fascists
and Conservatives, 138–56. London: Routledge.
Priestland, David. 2016. The Left and the Revolutions. In Nicholas Doumanis, ed.
Oxford Handbook of European History 1914–1945, 77–96. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Prieto, Indalecio. (1936–37) 2000. Selección de artículos (1936 y 1937). Madrid:
Fundación Indalecio Prieto.
Primo de Rivera, Miguel. (1930) 2018. La Obra de la Dictadura. Buenos Aires:
La Nación.
Prince of Hohenzollern-Roumania, Paul. 1988. King Carol II. London: Methuen.
Procacci, Giovanna. 1968. Italy: From Interventionism to Fascism, 1917–1919.
Journal of Contemporary History 3:4 (October): 153–76.
Przeworski, Adam. 2019. Crises of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
2009. The Mechanics of Regime Instability in Latin America. Journal of Politics
in Latin America 1:1 (Spring): 5–36.
Przeworski, Adam, and Fernando Limongi. 1997. Modernization. World Politics
49:2 (January): 155–83.
Puigsech, Josep. 2016. De partido de la clase obrera a partido popular. In
Francisco Morente, Jordi Pomés, and Josep Puigsech, eds. La Rabia y la
Idea, 79–104. Zaragoza: Universidad de Zaragoza.
Pugh, Martin. 2009. Britain and Its Empire. In Richard Bosworth, ed. Oxford
Handbook of Fascism, 489–506. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pyrah, Robert. 2007. Enacting Encyclicals? Totalitarian Movements and Political
Religions 8:2 (June): 369–82.
Radcliff, Pamela. 2016. The Political ‘Left’ in the Interwar Period, 1924–1939. In
Nicholas Doumanis, ed. Oxford Handbook of European History
1914–1945, 282–300. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Radek, Karl. 1962. November – Eine kleine Seite aus meinen Erinnerungen.
Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 2: 119–66.
Rady, Martin. 2014. Ferenc Szálasi, ‘Hungarism’ and the Arrow Cross. In
Rebecca Haynes and Martin Rady, eds. In the Shadow of Hitler, 261–77.
London: Tauris.
Raithel, Thomas. 2017. Behauptung und Erosion der parlamentarischen
Demokratie in Frankreich 1918 bis 1940. In Steffen Kailitz, ed. Nach dem
“Großen Krieg”, 219–41. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
358 Bibliography

Ránki, György. 1971. The Problem of Fascism in Hungary. In Peter Sugar, ed.
Native Fascism in the Successor States, 1918–1945, 65–72. Santa Barbara,
CA: ABC-Clio.
Ranzato, Gabriele. 2014. El gran miedo de 1936. Madrid: Esfera de los Libros.
Rappard, William. 1923. Democracy vs. Demagogy: I. Political Science Quarterly
38:2 (June): 290–306.
Raun, Toivo. 1987. Finland and Estonia. Journal of Baltic Studies 18:1 (Spring):
5–20.
Ravindranathan, Tachat. 1989. A Non-Bolshevik Bolshevik. Canadian Journal of
History 24:1 (April): 16–41.
Read, Anthony. 2008. The World on Fire. New York: Norton.
Readman, Kristina. 2007. Finland and the Baltic States. In Robert Gerwarth, ed.
Twisted Paths, 271–96. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Reiter-Zatloukal, Ilse, Christiane Rothländer, and Pia Schölnberger. 2012.
Einleitung. In Reiter-Zatloukal, Rothländer, and Schölnberger, eds.
Österreich 1933–1938, 7–14. Vienna: Böhlau.
Relatório (official justification of constitutional draft). 1932. Lisbon. Archived in
Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Lisbon. PT/TT/AOS/CO/PC-5, pt.1,
6a subdivisão, caixa 534, folhas 44–71.
Rey Reguillo, Fernando del. 2016a. Sin cuartel contra la República. In Francisco
Morente, Jordi Pomés, and Josep Puigsech, eds. La Rabia y la Idea, 147–71.
Zaragoza: Universidad de Zaragoza.
2016b. The Spanish Second Republic and Political Violence. Journal of
Contemporary History 51:2 (April): 430–35.
2012. Policies of Exclusion during the Second Republic. In Manuel Álvarez
Tardío and Fernando del Rey Reguillo, eds. The Spanish Second Republic
Revisited, 167–85. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press.
Rial, James. 1986. Revolution from above. Fairfax, VA: George Mason University
Press.
Richers, Julia. 2007. Die Resonanz der Revolution in der Welt. In Heiko
Haumann, ed. Die Russische Revolution 1917, 87–97. Cologne: Böhlau.
Riley, Dylan. 2019. The Civic Foundations of Fascism in Europe, 2nd ed. London:
Verso.
Rinke, Stefan, and Michael Wildt, eds. 2017. Revolutions and Counter-
Revolutions. Frankfurt: Campus.
Risse, Thomas, Stephen Ropp, and Kathryn Sikkink, eds. 1999. The Power of
Human Rights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Roberts, David. 2016. Fascist Interactions. New York: Berghahn.
Robin, Corey. 2018. The Reactionary Mind, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Rock, David. 1993. Authoritarian Argentina. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Rock, David, and Mario dos Santos. 1971. Lucha Civil en la Argentina.
Desarrollo Económico 11:42/44 (July): 165–215.
Rodrigues, Luís Nuno. 1996. A Legião Portuguesa. Lisbon: Editorial Estampa.
Röhm, Ernst. 1934. Die Geschichte eines Hochverräters, 5th ed. Munich: Franz
Eher.
 Bibliography 359

Rogainis, Janis. 1971. The Emergence of an Authoritarian Regime in Latvia,

1932–1934. Lituanus: Lithuanian Quarterly Journal of Arts and Sciences
17:3 (Fall).
Roio, Marcos del. 2007. O Impacto da Revolução Russa e da Internacional
Comunista no Brasil. In João Quartim de Moraes and Daniel Aarão Reis,
eds. História do Marxismo no Brasil. Vol. 1: O Impacto das Revoluções,
51–107. Campinas, SP: Editora da UNICAMP.
Romero, José Luis. 1968. The Course of Fascism. Chap. 9 in History of Argentine
Political Thought, 227–56. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Rosas, Fernando. 2013. Salazar e o Poder. Lisbon: Tinta-da-China.
Rosen, Edgar. 1957. Mussolini und Deutschland 1922–1923. Vierteljahreshefte
für Zeitgeschichte 5:1 (Januar): 17–41.
Rothschild, Joseph. 1974. East Central Europe between the Two World Wars.
Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Rueschemeyer, Dietrich, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John Stephens. 1992.
Capitalist Development and Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Ruiz, Julius. 2012. Old Wine in New Bottles. In Manuel Álvarez Tardío and
Fernando del Rey Reguillo, eds. The Spanish Second Republic Revisited,
186–201. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press.
Runkel, Ferdinand. 1919. Die Deutsche Revolution. Berlin: N.p.
Sabbatucci, Giovanni. 1996. The PSI and the Postwar Crisis. In Spencer Di Scala,
ed. Italian Socialism, 45–53. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Sakmyster, Thomas. 2006. Miklós Horthy. Vienna: Steinbauer.
Salazar, (António de) Oliveira. (1937) 1977. Como se levanta um Estado. Lisbon:
Golden Books.
(1935) 1948. Discursos, vol. 1: 1928–1934, 4th ed. Coimbra: Coimbra Editora.
Salgado, Plínio. 1939. Têrmo de Declarações. Delegacia Especializada de Ordem
Política e Social. São Paulo, February 4. Archived in Centro de Pesquisa e
Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brasil (CPDOC), Fundação
Getúlio Vargas, GV confidencial 1939.02.04.
1938. Letter to President Getúlio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro, 28 January. Archived
in Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de História Contemporânea do Brasil
(CPDOC), Fundação Getúlio Vargas, GV c 1938.01.28/3 (vol. XXIX-8b).
Sánchez Recio, Glicerio. 2017. Corporatism and the Franco Dictatorship in Spain.
In António Costa Pinto, ed. Corporatism and Fascism, 198–215. London:
Routledge.
Sandu, Traian. 2014. Un Fascisme Roumain. Paris: Perrin.
2013. Der Ertrag der Militanz und der regionale Erfolg der Eisernen Garde. In
Armin Heinen and Oliver Schmitt, eds. Inszenierte Gegenmacht von rechts,
155–90. Munich: Oldenbourg.
Santos, José Reis. 2019. Self-Fashioning on a Conservative Revolutionary. In
António Costa Pinto and Federico Finchelstein, eds. Authoritarianism and
Corporatism in Europe and Latin America, 42–64. London: Routledge.
Sartori, Giovanni, ed. 1984. Social Science Concepts. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Sartori, Giovanni, 1970. Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics.
American Political Science Review 64:4 (December): 1033–53.
360 Bibliography

Sassoon, Donald. 2007. Mussolini and the Rise of Fascism. London:

HarperCollins.
Sauer, Wolfgang. 1978. Die Reichswehr. Chap. in Karl Dietrich Bracher. Die
Auflösung der Weimarer Republik, 5th ed., 205–53. Königstein:
Athenäum – Droste.
1974. Die nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung, vol. 3: Die Mobilmachung
der Gewalt. Frankfurt: Ullstein.
Saunders, Elizabeth. 2017. No Substitute for Experience. International
Organization 71 (Supplement): S219–47.
Ščerbinskis, Valters. 2011. Leaders, Divided Society and Crisis. In Martyn
Housden and David Smith, eds. Forgotten Pages in Baltic History,
187–209. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Schafer, Mark, and Scott Crichlow. 2010. Groupthink versus High-Quality
Decision Making. New York: Columbia University Press.
Schafranek, Hans. 2013. Österreichische Nationalsozialisten in der Illegalität
1933–1938. In Florian Wenninger and Lucile Dreidemy, eds. Das Dollfuß-/
Schuschnigg-Regime 1933–1938, 105–37. Vienna: Böhlau.
Schauff, Frank. 2006. Der Spanische Bürgerkrieg. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht.
Schedler, Andreas. 2013. The Politics of Uncertainty. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Scheidemann, Philipp. 1929. The Making of New Germany, 2 vols. New York:
Appleton.
1921. Der Zusammenbruch. Berlin: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaft.
Schieder, Wolfgang. 2017. Adolf Hitler. Berlin: De Gruyter.
2005. Faschismus im politischen Transfer. In Sven Reichardt and Armin
Nolzen, eds. Faschismus in Italien und Deutschland, 28–58. Göttingen:
Wallstein.
1996. Das italienische Experiment. Historische Zeitschrift 262:1 (February):
73–125.
Schiemann, John. 2007. Bizarre Beliefs and Rational Choices. Journal of Politics
69:2 (May): 511–24.
Schildt, Axel. 1995. Das Kabinett Kurt von Schleicher. In Everhard Holtmann, ed.
Die Weimarer Republik, vol. 3: Ende der Demokratie 1929–1933, 391–443.
Munich: Bayerische Landeszentrale für Politische Bildung.
Schmid, Carlo. (1949) 1979. Rückblick auf die Verhandlungen. In Wolfgang
Benz, ed. “Bewegt von der Hoffnung aller Deutschen”, 503–23. Munich:
DTV.
Schmidt, Peer. 2004. Diktatur und Demokratie (1939–2000). In Peer Schmidt, ed.
Kleine Geschichte Spaniens, 443–523. Stuttgart: Reclam.
Schmitt, Karl. 1965. Communism in Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Schmitt, Oliver. 2016. Căpitan Codreanu. Vienna: Zsolnay.
2013. “Zum Kampf, Arbeiter.” In Armin Heinen and Oliver Schmitt, eds.
Inszenierte Gegenmacht von rechts, 277–360. Munich: Oldenbourg.
Schmolze, Gerhard, ed. 1978. Revolution und Räterepublik in München 1918/19
in Augenzeugenberichten. Munich: DTV.
Schotte, Walther. 1932. Der neue Staat. Berlin: Neufeld & Henius.
 Bibliography 361

Schulz, Gerhard. 1975. Aufstieg des Nationalsozialismus. Frankfurt: Propyläen.

Schuschnigg, Kurt. 1937. Dreimal Österreich. Vienna: Thomas-Verlag Jakob
Hegner.
Scott, Franklin. 1988. Sweden, enlarged ed. Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press.
Seiferheld, Alfredo. 2016. Nazismo y Fascismo en el Paraguay. Asunción:
ServiLibro.
Seton-Watson, Christopher. 1967. Italy from Liberalism to Fascism 1870–1925.
London: Methuen.
Sforza, Carlo. 1925. Italy and Fascism. Foreign Affairs 3:3 (April): 358–70.
Shane, Scott, and Ben Hubbard. 2014. ISIS displaying a deft command of varied
media. New York Times, August 31, p. A1. www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/
world/middleeast/isis-displaying-a-deft-command-of-varied-media.html,
accessed August 31, 2020
Shapiro, Paul. 1974. Prelude to Dictatorship in Romania. Canadian-American
Slavic Studies 8:1 (Spring): 45–88.
Siaroff, Alan. 1999. Democratic Breakdown and Democratic Stability. Canadian
Journal of Political Science 32:1 (March): 103–24.
Sikkink, Kathryn. 2011. The Justice Cascade. New York: Norton.
Silva, Griselda Brito. 2007. Ação Integralista Brasileira e a Ditadura de Vargas. In
Francisco Palomanes Martinho and António Costa Pinto, eds.,
O Corporativismo em Português, 201–38. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização
Brasileira.
Silva, Hélio. 1980. Vargas. Porto Alegre: L & PM.
Silva, Horacio. 2011. Días rojos, verano negro. Buenos Aires: Libros de Anarres.
Silva, Paulo da. 2008. A Constituição brasileira de 10 de novembro de 1937. São
Paulo: UNESP.
Silva Seitenfus, Ricardo. 1984. Ideology and Diplomacy. Hispanic American
Historical Review 64:3 (August): 503–34.
Silveira, Paulo. 1934. Letter to President Getúlio Vargas, Florence, Italy, 7
October. Archived in Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de História
Contemporânea do Brasil (CPDOC), Fundação Getúlio Vargas, GV c
1934.10.07. (vol. XVI-28).
Simmons, Beth, Frank Dobbin, and Geoffrey Garrett. 2008. Introduction. In Beth
Simmons, Frank Dobbin, and Geoffrey Garrett, eds. The Global Diffusion of
Markets and Democracy, 1–63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Simon, Herbert. 1976. Administrative Behavior, 3rd ed. New York: Free Press.
1955. A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice. Quarterly Journal of Economics
69:1 (February): 99–118.
Simon, Walter. 1978. Democracy in the Shadow of Imposed Sovereignty. In Juan
Linz and Alfred Stepan, eds. The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes:
Europe, 80–121. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Skocpol, Theda. 1979. States and Social Revolutions. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Smith, Denis. 1959. Italy: Modern History. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press.
Smith, Helmut. 2020. Germany. New York: Norton.
362 Bibliography

Smith, Jay. 1958. Finland and the Russian Revolution. Athens: University of
Georgia Press.
Smith, Peter. 2012. Democracy in Latin America, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Snyder, Timothy. 2017. On Tyranny. New York: Tim Duggan.
2015. Black Earth. New York: Tim Duggan.
Sontheimer, Kurt. 1978. Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik.
Munich: DTV.
Sorel, Georges. (1908) 1999. Reflections on Violence, ed. Jeremy Jennings.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Soucy, Robert. 1995. French Fascism: The Second Wave. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
1986. French Fascism: The First Wave. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Sparano, Luis. 1937. Letter by Brazil’s Commercial Attaché in Rome to Getúlio
Vargas. 23 July. Archived in Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de História
Contemporânea do Brasil (CPDOC), Fundação Getúlio Vargas, Rio de
Janeiro. GVc 1937.07.23 (vol. XXVI–87).
Spartakus. 1958. Spartakusbriefe, ed. Institut für Marxismus-Leninismus. Berlin
(East): Dietz.
Spektorowski, Alberto 2003. The Origins of Argentina’s Revolution of the Right.
Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Spencer, Henry. 1927. European Dictatorships. Foreign Affairs 21:3 (August):
537–51.
Spenser, Daniela. 2009. Los primeros tropiezos de la Internacional Comunista en
México. Mexico City: CIESAS.
Squeri, Lawrence. 1983. The Italian Local Elections of 1920 and the Outbreak of
Fascism. The Historian 45:3 (May): 324–36.
Stanley, Jason. 2018. How Fascism Works. New York: Random House.
Starhemberg, Ernst Prince. 1942. Between Hitler and Mussolini: Memoirs.
London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Stepan, Alfred. 1978. The State and Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
Sternhell, Zeev. 1986. Neither Right nor Left. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
Sternhell, Zeev, with Mario Sznajder and Maia Asheri. 1994. The Birth of Fascist
Ideology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Stewart, Herbert. 1946. Some Repercussions of the Russian Revolution.
International Journal 1:3 (July): 218–28.
Stover, William. 1977. Finnish Military Politics between the Two World Wars.
Journal of Contemporary History 12:4 (October): 741–57.
Stranga, Aivars. 2012. The Political System of Karlis Ulmanis’ Authoritarian
Regime. Studia Universitatis Cibiniensis. Serie Historica 9: 51–56.
Strenge, Irene. 2006. Kurt von Schleicher. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.
Stumpf, Richard. 1967. War, Mutiny and Revolution in the German Navy. New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Sturdza, Michel. 1968. The Suicide of Europe. Boston, MA: Western Islands.
 Bibliography 363

Sundhaussen, Holm. 2001. Die Königsdiktaturen in Südosteuropa. In Erwin

Oberländer, ed. Autoritäre Regime in Ostmittel- und Südosteuropa
1919–1944, 337–48. Paderborn: Schöningh.
Sunstein, Cass, ed. 2018. Can It Happen Here? New York: Dey Street.
Svolik, Milan. 2015. Which Democracies Will Last? British Journal of Political
Science 45:4 (October): 715–38.
2012. The Politics of Authoritarian Rule. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Szabó, István. 2008. Die beschränkte Demokratie. In Christoph Gusy, ed.
Demokratie in der Krise, 295–303. Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Szinai, Miklós, and László Szücs, eds. 1965. The Confidential Papers of Admiral
Horthy. Budapest: Corvina Press.
Sznajder, Mario. 2001. Was there Fascism in Chile? In Stein Larsen, ed. Fascism
Outside Europe, 561–92. Boulder, CO: Social Science Monographs.
Szöllösi-Janze, Margit. 1989. Die Pfeilkreuzlerbewegung in Ungarn. Munich:
Oldenbourg.
Taagepera, Rein. 1974. Civic Culture and Authoritarianism in the Baltic States,
1930-1940. East European Quarterly 7:4 (January): 407–12.
Tálos, Emmerich. 2013. Das austrofaschistische Herrschaftssystem. Vienna: LIT.
Teorell, Jan. 2010. Determinants of Democratization. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Thaler, Richard. 1992. The Winner’s Curse. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
Thomas, Maria. 2017. Political Violence in the Republican Zone of Spain during the
Spanish Civil War. Journal of Contemporary History 52:1 (January): 140–47.
Thorpe, Julie. 2010. Austrofascism. Journal of Contemporary History 45:2
(April): 315–43.
Tökés, Rudolf. 1967. Béla Kun and the Hungarian Soviet Republic. Stanford, CA:
Hoover Institution.
Tönsmeyer, Tatjana. 2007. The German Advisers in Slovakia, 1939–1945. In
Mark Cornwall and Robert Evans, eds. Czechoslovakia in a Nationalist
and Fascist Europe, 1918–1948, 169–84. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Toller, Ernst. (1933) 2009. Eine Jugend in Deutschland, 20th ed. Reinbek:
Rowohlt.
Toma, Peter. 1958. The Slovak Soviet Republic of 1919. American Slavic and East
European Review 17:2 (April): 203–15.
Traverso, Enzo. 2019. The New Faces of Fascism. London: Verso.
2016. Fire and Blood. London: Verso.
Trifkovic, Srdja. 2011. Ustaša. Chicago, IL: Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan
Studies.
Trindade, Hélgio. 2001. Fascism and Authoritarianism in Brazil under Vargas. In
Stein Larsen, ed. Fascism outside Europe, 469–528. Boulder, CO: Social
Science Monographs.
1979. Integralismo, 2nd ed. São Paulo: DIFEL.
Trotsky, Leon. 1934. Bonapartism and Fascism. New International 1:2 (August):
37–38.
364 Bibliography

Tsebelis, George. 1990. Nested Games. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Tumblety, Joan. 2009. France. In Richard Bosworth, ed. Oxford Handbook of
Fascism, 507–25. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Turner, Henry. 1996. Hitler’s Thirty Days to Power. New York: Basic Books.
1985. German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Ţiu, Ilarion. 2009. The Legionary Movement after Corneliu Codreanu. Boulder,
CO: East European Monographs.
Ucelay-Da Cal, Enric. 2017. Spain’s “Crisis of 1917.” In Stefan Rinke and
Michael Wildt, eds. 2017. Revolutions and Counter-Revolutions, 235–59.
Frankfurt: Campus.
Ullrich, Volker. 2013. Adolf Hitler, vol. 1. Frankfurt: Fischer.
Vago, Bela. 1975. The Shadow of the Swastika. London: Institute of Jewish
Affairs.
Valge, Jaak. 2011. Foreign Involvement and Loss of Democracy, Estonia 1934.
Journal of Contemporary History 46:4 (October): 788–808.
Vardys, Stanley. 1979. Democracy in the Baltic States, 1918–1934. Journal of
Baltic Studies 10:4 (Winter): 320–36.
1978. The Rise of Authoritarian Rule in the Baltic States. In Stanley Vardys and
Romuald Misiunas, eds. The Baltic States in Peace and War, 1917–1945,
65–80. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Vargas, Getúlio. 1995. Diário, 2 vols. São Paulo: Siciliano / Fundação Getúlio
Vargas.
1937. Letter to Oswaldo Aranha, Brazilian Ambassador in Washington. Rio de
Janeiro, November 8. Archived in Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de
História Contemporânea do Brasil, Fundação Getúlio Vargas, Rio de
Janeiro. GVc 1937.11.08/1 (vol. XXVIII-10).
Varrak, Toomas. 2000. Estonia. In Dirk Berg-Schlosser and Jeremy Mitchell, eds.
Conditions of Democracy in Europe, 1919–1939, 106–28. Houndmills:
Macmillan.
Vatlin, Alexander, and Stephen Smith. 2014. The Comintern. In Stephen Smith,
ed. Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism, 187–202. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Vermes, Gábor. 1971. The October Revolution in Hungary. In Iván Völgyes, ed.
Hungary in Revolution, 1918–19, 31–60. Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press.
Vieira, Evaldo. 1981. Autoritarismo e Corporativismo no Brasil, 2nd ed. São
Paulo: Cortez.
Villa García, Roberto. 2016. The Second Republic. Journal of Contemporary
History 51:2 (April): 420–24.
Vincent, Mary. 2016. Political Violence and Mass Society. In Nicholas Doumanis,
ed. Oxford Handbook of European History 1914–1945, 388–406. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
2009. Spain. In Richard Bosworth, ed. Oxford Handbook of Fascism, 362–79.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Vis, Barbara. 2019. Heuristics and Political Elites’ Judgment and Decision-
Making. Political Studies Review 17:1 (February): 41–52.
 Bibliography 365

Völgyes, Iván. 1971. Soviet Russia and Soviet Hungary. In Iván Völgyes, ed.
Hungary in Revolution, 1918–19, 158–69. Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press.
Vogelsang, Thilo. 1962. Reichswehr, Staat und NSDAP. Stuttgart: DVA.
Von Baden, Prinz Max. 1927. Erinnerungen und Dokumente. Stuttgart: Deutsche
Verlags-Anstalt.
Von Rauch, Georg. 1995. The Baltic States 1917–1940. New York: St. Martin’s.
Waisman, Carlos. 1987. Reversal of Development in Argentina. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Waldeck, Rosie. (1942) 2013. Athene Palace. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press.
Waldman, Eric. 1967. Spartakus. Boppard: Harald Boldt.
Waldmann, Peter. 1974. Der Peronismus 1943–1955. Hamburg: Hoffmann und
Campe.
Walter, Richard. 1993. The Right and the Peronists, 1943–1955. In Sandra
McGee Deutsch and Ronald Dolkart, eds. The Argentine Right, 99–118.
Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources.
1977. The Socialist Party of Argentina, 1890–1930. Austin: University of Texas
Press.
Walterskirchen, Gudula. 2004. Engelbert Dollfuss. Vienna: Molden.
Weber, Eugen. 1976. Revolution? Counterrevolution? What Revolution? In
Walter Laqueur, ed. Fascism, 435–67. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Weber, Max. 1976. Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 5th ed. Johannes Winckelmann.
Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr.
Weber, Thomas. 2016. Wie Adolf Hitler zum Nazi wurde. Berlin: Propyläen.
Wehler, Hans-Ulrich. 2010. Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, vol. 4: 1914–1949.
Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung.
Weitz, Eric. 2007. Weimar Germany. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
1997. Creating German Communism, 1890–1990. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Wejnert, Barbara. 2014. Diffusion of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Wellhofer, Spencer. 2003. Democracy and Fascism. American Political Science
Review 97:1 (February): 91–106.
Wenninger, Florian. 2013. Dimensionen organisierter Gewalt. In Florian
Wenninger and Lucile Dreidemy, eds. Das Dollfuß-/Schuschnigg-Regime
1933–1938, 493–576. Vienna: Böhlau.
Weyland, Kurt. 2020. Populism’s Threat to Democracy. Perspectives on Politics
18:2 (June) 389–406.
2019. Revolution and Reaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2018. Populism and Authoritarianism. In Carlos de la Torre, ed. Routledge
Handbook of Global Populism, 319–33. London: Routledge.
2017. Fascism’s Missionary Ideology and the Autocratic Wave of the Interwar
Years. Democratization 24:7 (December): 1253–70.
2016. Crafting Counterrevolution: How Reactionaries Learned to Combat
Change in 1848. American Political Science Review 110:2 (May): 215–31.
366 Bibliography

2014. Making Waves. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2012. The Arab Spring. Perspectives on Politics 10:4 (December): 917–34.
Wheeler, Douglas. 1978. Republican Portugal. Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press.
Whetstine, Brian. 1988. Bulgarian Interwar Politics and the Military Solution.
Bulgarian Historical Review 3: 81–90.
Wibbels, Erik. 2006. Dependency Revisited. International Organization 60:2
(Spring): 433–68.
Wiederin, Ewald. 2012. Christliche Bundesstaatlichkeit auf ständischer
Grundlage. In Ilse Reiter-Zatloukal, Christiane Rothländer, and Pia
Schölnberger, eds. Österreich 1933–1938, 31–41. Vienna: Böhlau.
Winkler, Heinrich August. 2000. Der lange Weg nach Westen, vol. 1. Munich:
C.H. Beck.
Wirsching, Andreas. 2007. Antibolschewismus als Lernprozess. In Martin Aust
and Daniel Schönpflug, eds. Vom Gegner lernen, 137–56. Frankfurt:
Campus.
1999. Vom Weltkrieg zum Bürgerkrieg? Munich: Oldenbourg.
Wirsching, Andreas, Berthold Kohler, and Ulrich Wilhelm, eds. 2018.Weimarer
Verhältnisse? Stuttgart: Reclam.
Wittenberg, Jason. 2014. External Influences on the Evolution of Hungarian
Authoritarianism, 1920–44. In António Costa Pinto and Aristotle Kallis,
eds. Rethinking Fascism and Dictatorship in Europe, 219–32. Houndmills:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Wohnout, Helmut. 2012. Die Verfassung 1934 im Widerstreit der unterschiedli-
chen Kräfte im Regierungslager. In Ilse Reiter-Zatloukal, Christiane
Rothländer, and Pia Schölnberger, eds. Österreich, 1933–1938, 17–30.
Vienna: Böhlau.
2003. A Chancellorial Dictatorship with a “Corporative” Pretext. In Günter
Bischof, Anton Pelinka, and Alexander Lassner, eds. The Dollfuss/
Schuschnigg Era in Austria. Contemporary Austrian Studies, vol. 11,
143–62. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Zamir, Eyal. 2014. Loss Aversion. Chap. in Law, Psychology, and Morality: The
Role of Loss Aversion, 3–49. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zarusky, Jürgen. 1992. Die deutschen Sozialdemokraten und das sowjetische
Modell. Munich: Oldenbourg.
Zeidler, Miklós. 2014. Gyula Gömbös. In Rebecca Haynes and Martin Rady, eds.
In the Shadow of Hitler, 121–37. London: Tauris.
Ziblatt, Daniel. 2017. Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ziemann, Benjamin. 2011. Germany 1914–1918. In Helmut Smith, ed. Oxford
Handbook of Modern German History, 378–99. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Zúquete, José. 2005. In Search of a New Society. Portuguese Journal of Social
Science 4:1 (April): 39–59.
 Index

Action Française, 297 anti-Communism intertwined with, 166,

adventurism, 54–55 191, 211–12
age of extremes, 50–51, 75–76, 133, nationalism and, 159–60, 166, 203
155–56, 316 totalitarian and, 284
agrarian elites, 124 Antonescu, Ion, 271–75, 305
agrarian radicalism, 139–40 Aranha, Oswaldo, 245
agrarian redistribution, 235–36 Argentina, 29, 199, 202–3, 293–94, 305–12
agrarian reform, 140–41 Great Depression and, 307
agriculture, 44 Radical Party, 306–7, 311–12
Almeida, José Américo de, 244 Socialist Party, 306–7
anarchists, 233–34, 238–39 armed rebellion, 90
ancien régime, 60–61 armed uprisings, 135–38
Anschluß (greater Germany), 215, 276, Arquivo Nacional da Torre de Tombo, 27
287–88 Arrow Cross (Hungary), 31, 261, 287–89,
anti-Bolshevism, 24–25, 130, 137–38 305
anticlerical measures, 231–32 Asturias (Spain), 234
anti-Communism, 22, 32, 115, 132, 149, asymmetrical loss aversion. See loss aversion
209, 247–50, 295, 320–21 Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal, 164, 251–52
anti-Semitism intertwined with, 166, 191, austerity, 176–77
211–12 Austria, 9, 17, 31, 63, 85, 117, 202–3, 212,
appeal of, 166–67 215
counter-diffusion by, 101 Christian Socials, 205–6, 267–79
dictatorships of, 7 conservative elites in, 196
Iron Guard and, 210 conservative struggles with fascism in,
military rule and, 62–63 275–81
NSDAP and, 187 Hitler and, 267–77
repression of, 14, 135–36 self-coups in, 324–25
rightwing extremism and, 301 Social Democracy and, 138–39
rightwingers and, 229–30 Social Democratic Party, 234, 275–76,
anti-fascist coups, 10 280
anti-liberalism, 32, 229–30 status-quo defenders and, 229
anti-rationalism, 32 Austrian Nazi party, 276
anti-Semitism, 166–67, 174, 209–10 Austro-fascism, 193–94

367
368 Index

authoritarianism, 4, 7, 225–26 stability imposed by, 47

advocates of, 162 totalitarianism and, 24, 197–98, 225–26,
Catholic, 242, 279–80 329
competitive, 115–16, 255–56, 283–84, traditionalist, 231
305–6 types of, 63
complex advance of, 41 upsurge of, 332
conservative, 10–11, 45–46, 57–64, 129, violence against fascist totalitarians by
177–81, 193–94, 196–97, 212–13, conservative authoritarians, 11–12
227–28, 242–43, 267–75, 286–87, autocracy, 249, 314
320–21, 326–27 actors newly liberated from, 43
conservative elites and, 227 basic types of, 23–24
de-mobilizational, 103, 185–86, 220, demands for, 294
282, 291–92 double deterrent effect and, 20
descent into, 316 elitist, 280–81
dictatorships, 16–17, 23, 243–44 exclusionary, 28
elitist, 18–19, 317–18 fascism as reactionary form of, 127
exclusionary, 9, 15–16, 61–62, 133, 160, growing literature on, 20–21
216, 225 imposition of, 70, 115–16
fascism differences from, 315–16 interwar years and, 56–57, 312
fascist regime-insiders, authoritarian interwar years installation of reactionary
containment of, 282 autocracies during, 4–5
fascist takeovers preempted by, 260–61, Italy, autocratic regression, 116
281 non-fascist, 204–5
fascist tools imported by, 220–22 non-mobilizational, 158
fortification of, 219–20 paths to, 64
growing literature on, 20–21 reactionary, 127, 198, 276
hardening dictatorships, 46 reverse wave of, 198–202
hardening of, 43–44, 229, 253–60, Romanov, 51
287–89, 324–25 transnational influences on, 21–24
Hungary, fascist regime insider in
authoritarian regime of, 283–87 backlash
Hungary, hardening authoritarianism in, against Communism, 18
287–89, 324–25 counterrevolutionary, 115
Hungary, installation of, 120–22 against Cuban Revolution, 12
Hungary and, 113 against fascism, 18
ideas shaping, 36 against leftwingers, 103, 122–23
imposed with fascism, 229–53 dual backlash dynamic, 316–21
imposition of, 70–71, 73, 202 reactionary, 41–42, 199, 314–15
incompatibility of fascism and, 22–23 rightwing, 228–29
installation of, 116, 155 to Russian Revolution, 130
interwar reverse wave and, 195–96 backwardness, 44–45, 129, 160, 173–74,
Latin America, installation of 253–54
authoritarian regimes in, 320–21 Baltic-German nobles, 140
Lenin and, 24–25 Baltics, 96–99, 112–13, 118–19, 261–66
nature of, 226 Banac, Ivo, 84
non-mobilizational, 39–40, 56–57, Basic Law of 1949 (Germany), 327–28
153–54, 213–14 Bavaria, 75–76, 90–91
proliferation of, 212–13, 218–19 Bayesian updating, 65
reactionary, 181 Beerhall Putsch, 156
rule of, 29 Belgium, 10, 27–28, 145–46, 202–3
spread of, 17–18 Ben Ali, Zine El Abidine, 66–67
 Index 369

Berend, Ivan, 84 Brüning, Heinrich, 175–77, 300–1

Berman, Sheri, 20–21 brutality, 11, 70–72, 108, 137–38, 160–61,
Bernstein, Eduard, 106–7, 110–11 321
Bethlen, István, 121–22, 283, 286–87 Bulgaria, 261
biennio rosso, 125, 152–54
biological racism, 29–31 Călinescu, Armand, 269–71
Bismarck, Otto von, 162 Campos, Francisco, 249–50
Black Friday, 45–46 Carol II (King), 211–12, 221–22, 268–69,
Black Shirt movement (Italy), 126–27, 271–73
142–43 Carsten, Frances, 84
Blue Shirts (Portugal), 31, 256 Carta del Lavoro (Mussolini), 222–23, 241,
Bolshevism, 75–76, 166–67, 191, 217–18, 257–58
242, 294 Catholic authoritarianism, 242, 279–80
admiration for, 92 Catholic Center, 118, 162
anti-Bolshevism, 24–25 Catholic Church, 222–23, 231, 237–40,
eruption of, 57 242–43
exporting, 97 Catholic corporatism, 254
fascism and, 151–52 Catholic Popolari (Italy), 124–25
fear of, 101, 103–5, 198–99 causal heterogeneity, 27–28
Germany and, 104 center-left governing coalition, 299
global advance of, 94 center-left organizations, 105–7
Mussolini and, 126 center-right, 113
precedent set by, 87 Central Revolutionary Council of Bavaria,
repression of, 130 91
rise of, 64, 324 Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação de
risks emanating from, 120–21 História Contemporânea do Brasil
socioeconomic order overturned by, 79 (CPDOC), 27
street fighters against, 72 Ceresole, Norberto, 306–7
success of, 83–84 Chávez, Hugo, 306–7, 329–30
threat of, 139–40 Chile, 43–44, 114, 202–3
Bolshevist Revolution. See Russian Christian Democracy, 69, 132
Revolution Christian Socials (Austria), 205–6, 267–79
Boris III (Tsar), 199 Cioran, Emil, 59, 144, 203–4, 211–12
bounded rationality, 11–14, 26, 69, 78, class struggle, 255
84–85, 105–6, 131 clientelism, 160, 173–74, 218–19, 227, 231,
inferential mechanisms of, 186–87 253–54, 283
interwar years and, 321–25 clientelistic networks, 33–34, 44, 62,
liberal democracy and, 118 248–49
looser, 152–53, 217 Codreanu, Corneliu Zelea, 145, 201–2,
products of, 199–200, 263 204, 207–8, 267–68
tightness of, 92, 94, 168 base gained in countryside, 209–10
twisted workings of, 101–2 execution of, 271
Bracher, Karl Dietrich, 145–46 Machtergreifung and, 210–11
Brazil, 28, 59–60, 202–3, 229, 320–21 quasi-religious appeals of, 208–9
authoritarianism, hardening of, 324–25 success of, 208, 270–71
Commercial Attaché, 245 coercive pressure, 17
Communism and, 244–45 cognitive deviations, 12, 65
Integralists, 31 cognitive heuristics, 99–100, 261, 321–22
self-coup in, 243–53 Russian Revolution and, 76–82
Breitscheid, Rudolf, 176–77 cognitive inferences, 103–4
Bremen, Germany, 82, 85–86, 89–90, 110 cognitive mechanisms, 13, 27
370 Index

cognitive mechanisms (cont.) revolutionary, 40, 50, 281

center-left organizations and, 105–7 rise of, 323–24
political turbulence of interwar years and, Salgado and, 249
70–73 Spanish conservatives and, 258
cognitive micro-mechanisms, 68–70 specter of, 36, 221, 227
cognitive psychology, 14, 65, 72–73, 315, spread of, 13
324 status-quo defenders and, 115, 132–33
cognitive shortcuts, 65–68, 90, 94, 194–95, subversive efforts of, 165
216 suppression of, 294
impression of, 111 threat of, 25–26, 61, 187–88
inferences derived via, 82 USSR promotion of, 254–55
loss aversion and, 71–72 violence used to combat, 317–18
cognitive-psychological mechanisms, Communist International (Comintern),
13–14, 17–18 55–56, 132, 134, 205
collective abdication, 213–14 Communist revolution, 6–7, 18, 72–73,
collectivization, 95–96 283, 309, 317–18. See also socialist
color revolutions, 41, 43 revolution
Comintern. See Communist International attempts at, 28
Commercial Attaché (Brazil), 245 conservative establishment and, 10–11
Communism, 5–7, 10–11, 28, 318–19, 326, establishment sectors and, 7
331. See also anti-Communism; fear of, 194, 201–2
Bolshevism impact of, 49–51
backlash against, 18 prospect of, 186–87
Brazil and, 244–45 protection against, 141
Catholic Church crusade against, 222–23 replicability of, 81
conservative authoritarianism, weakness risk of, 65, 116
exposed by, 57 status-quo defenders and, 101
democracy and, 121–22 competitive imitation, 18
deterrent effect of, 195, 319 comprehensive probability estimation, 65
diffusion of, 116, 228–29 conformity pressures, 69–70
Estonia, Communist coup attempt in, conservatism, 60–64, 174, 241, 254–56,
200–1 262–63
fascism war with, 156, 260 conservative elites, 39–40, 196, 206–7, 214,
fear of, 8–10, 39, 49–51, 70–71, 103, 216, 218–19, 239, 282
113, 136–37, 198–99, 201–2, authoritarianism and, 227
213–14, 217, 233, 299, 314, 318 dictatorship and, 253–54
reverse wave of autocracy and, double deterrent effect and, 202
198–202 fascism and, 217–18, 318–19
Finland and, 119 Hitler and, 318
impact of, 49–51 National Socialism and, 193
imposition of, 141 in Spain, 236–37
Latin America and, 139 conservative establishment, 10–11
liberal democracy and, 165 constructivism, 14–17, 142
millenarian project of, 50 Cornell, Agnes, 44–45
overreaction to, 109–10 corporatism, 222–25, 254, 275–76, 285–86
perceived threat of, 7, 29, 155 class struggle forestalled by, 255
political activism of communists, 134–36 interest representation and, 154
political efforts of communists, 137–41 cost-benefit analysis, 12
proliferation of, 129–30 counter-diffusion, 81–82, 197, 261, 318–26
push toward, 55 anti-Communism and, 101
revolts, 54–55, 132 against Communism, 228–29
 Index 371

diffusion and, 151–52 failure of, 136

ferocity of, 101–2 fascism takeover of, 189
reactionary, 129–30 Great Depression and, 189–90
counterrevolution, 35, 155–56, 299–300, Hitler and, 159, 168
313 hostility to, 191
counterrevolutionary backlash, 115 in Finland, 116–17, 291–92, 312
counterrevolutionary containment, 55 interwar years and, 313
counterrevolutionary fortification, 141 Latvia and, 266
counterrevolutionary reactions, 13–14, 29 Lithuania and, 199–200
counterrevolutionary suppression, 103–4, maintaining, 27–28
108–11 military might destroying, 17
counterrevolutionary violence, 110–15, modernization theory, 44–45
128–29 non-, 9
counter-terror, 14 party system and, 29, 200–1
CPDOC. See Centro de Pesquisa e persistence of, 291–92
Documentação de História preservation of, 303
Contemporânea do Brasil rejection of, 121–22
crisis, opportunities arising from, 175–77 rule by, 56
Croatia, 305 self-destruction of, 3–4
Cuban Revolution, 7, 40, 61–62, 315–16, spread of, 34
321 strength of, 159–60, 162–64
backlash against, 12 suffocation of, 267–68, 331–32
Latin America and, 41, 43–44, 315–16 survival of, 294
cultural pessimism, 15, 47–48, 141–42, threatened, 328
330–31 undermining of, 310–11
Czechoslovakia, 10, 29, 291–94, 301–5, vulnerability of, 195
312 weakness of, 141–42, 159–60
Pĕtka, 302 democratization, 1, 15–16, 66–67, 114
Sudetendeutsche, 301–2, 304 demonstration effects, 18–21, 321–22
deterrent effects and, 101–2
D-Day, 311 of Russian Revolution, 51–54
Debray, Régis, 61–62 de-politicization, 220
Degrelle, Léon, 20, 31, 145–46 despotism, 23
democracy, 20–21, 66–67, 86–87, 134–35, deterrent effects, 18–21, 260, 314, 321–22.
280–81, 290. See also liberal See also double deterrent effect
democracy demonstration effect and, 101–2
advance of, 43 of Communism, 195, 319
alternatives to, 141 of fascism, 48, 196–97, 318–19
aversion to, 195 of Russian Revolution, 54–57, 174
breakdown of, 5–6, 48–49, 191–92 Deutsche Volkspartei (DVP), 175–76
clean start for, 111 Deutschnationale Volkspartei (DNVP),
Communism and, 121–22 171–73, 175–76, 187–88
conceptions of, 29 dictatorship, 16–17, 27, 32, 45, 120–23,
defensive capacity of, 61–62 126–27, 133, 143–44, 171, 180–81,
destruction of, 41 222–23
dictatorship, replaced by, 263 authoritarian, 16–17, 23, 243–44
difficulty surviving in conflictual settings, authoritarianism hardening, 46
43 conservative elites and, 253–54
downfall of, 39–40, 45–46, 311–12 democracy replaced by, 263
enemies of, 278–79 durable, 229, 237
Estonia and, 262, 265–66 of anti-Communism, 7
372 Index

dictatorship (cont.) tragic consequences of, 73–74

full-scale, 72 violence and, 11
imposition of, 131, 135–36, 152–55, 199, Dreyfus Affair, 297
212–13, 219 dual backlash dynamic, 316–21
installation of, 5–6, 189, 193–94 Duce. See Mussolini, Benito
interwar years, proliferation of Dukes, Paul, 76–77
reactionary dictatorships during, 198 Duterte, Rodrigo, 329
mass-mobilizational, 196–97 DVP. See Deutsche Volkspartei
military, 114–16, 242–43, 257–58,
271–75, 310, 315 Ebert, Friedrich, 106, 111–12
non-ideological, 251–52 economic crises, 44
non-participatory, 196, 202 economic elite, 183, 307
non-totalitarian, 62, 224–25 Egypt, 66–67
opposed models of, 319 elections, 118, 140–41, 171, 285, 287–88,
paths toward, 28 330
permanent, 254 KPD success in, 182–83
proliferation of, 198 leftwingers and, 326–27
reactionary, 115, 198, 282 Reichstag, 181–82
rightwingers and, 266 voter intimidation, 209
royal, 11–12, 199–201, 221–22, 267, Eliade, Mircea, 59, 144, 211–12
269–70 elitist conservatives, 181
sustained by mass support, 156 England, 10, 104
top-down, 63 Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip, 329
totalitarian, 36, 50, 115, 187–88, 190, Ermächtigungsgesetz (law of
234 empowerment), 187–88, 278–79
traditional, 20–21 establishment elites, 64, 73
types of, 4, 8–9, 103 establishment sector, 7, 39–40, 124–25,
unstable, 254–56 133, 218–19, 230–31, 270, 282
violence and, 324–25 Estado Nôvo (new state), 179–80, 251–52
dictatorship of the proletariat, 89, 93, 110, Estonia, 9, 27, 43, 63, 96, 116, 119, 202–3,
121–23, 125, 176–77 212, 261
diffusion, 18–20, 81–82, 227 Baltic-German nobles and, 140
counter-diffusion and, 151–52 Communist coup attempt in, 200–1
isomorphic, 82–83, 115–16 conservative elites in, 196
normative, 17 democracy and, 262, 265–66
of Communism, 116, 228–29 land redistribution and, 140–41
of fascism, 158 mainstream parties of, 263
Dittmann, Wilhelm, 80–81, 88 self-coups in, 324–25
division of labor, 68 Socialist Party, 264
DNVP. See Deutschnationale Volkspartei status-quo defenders and, 229
Dollfuß, Engelbert, 193–94, 234, 267–81 threat of Bolshevism to, 139–40
Catholic authoritarian regime instituted Vaps Movement, 262–63
by, 279–80 Estonian Communist Party, 119–20
double deterrent effect, 5, 9–10, 24–25, 40, Estonian War of Independence, 262–63
62, 64, 290 ethnic tensions, 5–6, 41–43, 195
conservative authoritarianism and, 10–11 Evola, Julius, 211–12
conservative elites and, 202 exclusionary autocracy, 28
evidence for, 281 exclusionary elite, 214
importance of, 18 exclusionary rule, 308
micro-foundations and, 65 expertise, 68
riptide of autocracy and, 20 extremist uprisings, 116–17
 Index 373

factory nationalizations, 95 France and, 297–301

factory occupations, 124–25 full-fledged, 28, 193, 198, 221–22, 228,
Faisceau, 145–46 285, 304–6, 311
Faisceau des Combattants et des German version of, 158–60, 162, 190,
Producteurs, 298 226, 228
Falange (Spain), 31, 231, 237–43 rise of, 164–67
Farneti, Paolo, 123–24 strategy and advance of, 167–72
fasci di combattimento, 126 totalitarianism of, 188–89
fascism, 2–3, 7, 20–26, 72, 177–81, 225–26 global defeat of, 29
alliances with, 60–61 Great Depression and, 164
anti-fascist coups, 10 hardening of authoritarianism with,
appeal of, 16–17, 39, 47–48, 75–76, 131, 253–60
133, 212, 219 historical learning from, 325–28
Austria, conservative struggles with, homegrown, 195–96
275–81 Hungary, fascist regime insider in
Austro-fascism, 193–94 authoritarian regime of, 283–87
authoritarianism, fascist takeovers hybridization of, 29
preempted by, 260–61, 281 imposing, 17
authoritarianism differences from, in pre-revolutionary Italy, 122–27
315–16 incompatibility of authoritarianism,
authoritarianism imposed with, 229–53 22–23
autocracy, non-fascist, 204–5 installation of, 189–90
backlash against, 18 installing authoritarianism rather than,
Baltics and, 261–66 155
Bolshevism and, 151–52 institutional instruments of, 219–20
breakdown of democracy and, 191–92 interwar years and, 57, 158
clerical, 193–94 isomorphic imitation of Italian, 167–68
Communism war with, 156, 260 Italy, emergence in, 8–10
Communist revolution and, 317–18 lack of clear ideological doctrine, 32–33
complex advance of, 41 leaders of, 15–16
concern about, 49–51 leftist radicalism and, 155–56
conservative elites and, 217–18, 318–19 Machtergreifung and specter of, 318
conservative struggles with, 287–89 Marxism fight against, 60
counterrevolutionary, 314 mobilizational, 274–75, 282
as counterrevolutionary fortification, 141 movements kept weak, 291
Czechoslovakia and, 301–5 Mussolini, fascist emulation of, 148–52
defensive capacity of, 156 Mussolini doctrine of, 30
democracy taken over by, 189 populism and, 305–12, 329–30
destructive impact of, 62–63 power grab by, 270–71
deterrent effects of, 48, 196–97, 318–19 precedent set by Italy of, 150–51
deterrent effects of Communism and, 195 proliferation of fascist movements, 202–8
difficult to define, 29–31 rare success of, 20–21
diffusion of, 158 reactionary autocracy, 127
establishment sectors and, 270 regime impact, 197–98
explanations of, 24–26 regime-insiders, authoritarian
extreme reaction of, 18–19 containment of, 282
failure to contain, 183–88 repression of, 196
failure to coopt, 181–83 resurgence of, 316
Finland, fascist mobilization in, 294–97 revival of, 328–32
fortification of authoritarianism with, as rightwing variant of totalitarianism,
219–20 31–33
374 Index

fascism (cont.) Freud, Sigmund, 141

rightwingers, appeal to, 39 Führerkult, 149
rise of, 22, 56–60, 133, 197 Fujimori, Alberto, 329
Romania and, 208–12, 267–75 Fundação Getúlio Vargas, 27
self-destruction of, 321
small groupings of, 207 Gemeinschaft, 141–42
spread of, 17–18, 47–48, 289–90 general strikes, 117, 163
obstacles to, 213–16 German Democratic Party, 114
during WWII, 62–63 Germany, 1–2, 6–7, 9–10, 27, 77, 84–85,
strength through, 142–44 318–19. See also
strengthening of, 229 Nationalsozialistische Deutsche
surge of, 29 Arbeiterpartei; Sozialdemokratische
tools of, 220–22 Partei
totalitarian, 18–19, 60–64, 201–2, 228, Anschluß (greater Germany), 215, 276,
259–60, 284, 286–87, 314–15 287–88
ultraviolent, 13–14 Basic Law of 1949, 327–28
US and, 202–3 Bolshevism and, 104
violence against fascist totalitarians by Bremen, 82, 85–86, 89–90, 110
conservative authoritarians, 11–12 Communism, subversive efforts and, 165
feasibility judgments, 51, 53 economic and military potential of, 188
Ferro, António, 258–59 fascism, variant from, 158–60, 162, 190,
finance capitalism, 52 226, 228
Finland, 82–83, 96–99, 116, 293–94 rise of, 164–67
Communism and, 119 strategy and advance of, 167–72
democracy in, 116–17, 291–92, 312 totalitarianism of, 188–89
fascist mobilization in, 294–97 Great Depression and, 45–46, 175
land redistribution and, 140–41 Interior Ministry, 165–66
Lapua Movement, 31, 262–63, 265, leftwingers and, 78–80, 86–87
295–97 local challenges stimulated by Spartakus
red terror compared to white terror in, Uprising, 117
108 multifaceted crisis of 1923, 147
repression in, 114 Munich, 90–92, 94, 110–11
Socialist Workers’ Party, 119–20 November Revolution of 1918, 107
status-quo defenders and, 118–19 radical-left power grabs in, 92
Finnish Communist Party, 99, 138 Social Democracy and, 106
France, 27–28, 149–50, 164, 202–3, Social Democrats, 52–53
293–94, 312 strategic interests of, 17
democracy in, 291–92 totalitarianism, descent into, 281
far-right challenges in, 292–93 Weimar, 34
fascism and, 297–301 world revolution and, 85–86
Great Depression and, 297–98 Gerwarth, Robert, 102–3
pluralism and, 301 Gil Robles, José María, 236–37
Popular Front, 299–301 Gleichschaltung (societal groupings), 158
Vichy regime, 298, 300–1 globalization, 331
Franco, Francisco, 63, 221–22, 225–26, Goebbels, Joseph, 168–69, 174–75, 182–84
231–43, 267–68, 322 Gömbös, Gyula, 148–53, 283–87, 289, 309
freedom of speech, 134–35 governability, 212
Freikorps, 109–14, 125 gradualism, 49
proliferation of, 172–73 Great Coalition, 175–76
violence and, 160–61 Great Depression, 5–6, 21, 40–42, 59, 74,
French Revolution, 40, 297 206–7
 Index 375

Argentina and, 307 chancellorship of, 184–85, 189

coping with, 262 charisma of, 160, 169–70, 188–89
corrosive impact of, 170–71 cognitive heuristics activated by, 261
democracy and, 189–90 conservative elites and, 318
fallout of, 190, 275–76 Czechoslovakia and, 292–93
fascism and, 164 democracy and, 159, 168
France and, 297–98 dictatorial ambitions of, 185
Germany and, 45–46, 175 disciples of, 72, 281
Horthy and, 283–84 economic elite and, 183
political-institutional problems and, efforts to follow in footsteps of, 18–19
261–62 emulation of Mussolini, 148–52
profiting from, 193 establishment elites and, 73
recovery from, 188–89 expansionary international goals of, 304
shock of, 114–15 first attempt at seizing power, 113, 146
Weimar Republic and, 162 Franco and, 241
great powers, 115–16 Gömbös and, 148–53
greater Germany (Anschluß), 215, 276, Hindenburg and, 183–84
287–88 imitators of, 204–5, 215
great-power argument, 46–47 installation of, 187–88, 190
great-power literature, 17 “March on the Feldherrnhalle,” 20, 150
Greece, 199 mass support garnered by, 159–60, 282
Griffin, Roger, 29–31 Mein Kampf, 136, 149, 166–67, 169–70
guerrilla movements, 42 Mussolini, Hitler going beyond, 188
Gunitsky, Seva, 20–21, 60 Mussolini success and, 167
on Marxism, 166
Haapala, Pertti, 102–3 Papen and, 179
Habsburg Empire, 93, 129, 275–76 precedents of, 21–22, 211
Heimwehr (Home Defense Guard), 20, 31, Romania and, 47
276, 279–80 Spain and, 234–35
heuristic of availability, 65–67, 69–70, 76, success of, 225, 261–62, 267–68,
78–79, 92, 135, 263, 323–24, 276–77
331–32 trade unions and, 224
fear of Bolshevism and, 101 USSR attacked by, 259–60
individuals swept up by, 83 veto power of, 183–84
reliance on, 234 violence and, 324–25
Russian Revolution and, 144, 198–99 Hobbesian anthropology, 33–34
heuristic of representativeness, 65–67, Hobsbawm, Eric, 34, 133
69–70, 75–76, 79–80, 92, 135, 263, Holocaust, 15, 58–59, 325
323–24 Home Defense Guard (Heimwehr), 20, 31,
fear of Bolshevism and, 101 276, 279–80
individuals swept up by, 83 homo oeconomicus, 12
reliance on, 234 Horne, John, 102–3
Russian Revolution and, 144, 198–99 Horthy, Miklós, 104, 128, 136–37, 151–52,
heuristic shortcuts, 186–87 203–5, 283–89
Hindenburg, Paul von, 175–77, 179, Höß, Rudolf, 322
183–85, 189–90 human rights, 112–13
Hitler, Adolf, 2–3, 9–11, 17, 32, 57–58, 147 human tragedies, 15
abortive coup of 1923, 167–68 Hungary, 42–43, 45–46, 75–76, 93–96,
Antonescu and, 271–73 128–29, 202–3, 206
Austria and, 267–77 Arrow Cross, 31, 261, 287–89, 305
Beerhall Putsch, 156 authoritarianism and, 113
376 Index

Hungary (cont.) democracy and, 313

fascist regime insider in authoritarian dual backlash dynamic of, 316–21
regime of, 283–87 fascism and, 57, 158
hardening authoritarianism in, 287–89, installation of reactionary autocracies
324–25 during, 4–5
installation of authoritarianism, 120–22 political turbulence of, 70–73
liberal revolution in, 104 proliferation of reactionary dictatorships
“March on Budapest,” 145–46, 151 during, 198
reactionaries in, 102–3 rightwingers and, 25–26
red terror compared to white terror in, tragedy of, 11–14, 40, 321–25
108 uncertainty in, 78
red years of, 120–21 underdeveloped countries and, 256
victorious rightwingers in, 121–22 Iranian Revolution, 41–43, 315
hybrid regimes, 23 Iron Curtain, 325–26
hyperinflation, 5–6, 41, 59, 74, 147, Iron Guard (Romania), 31, 145, 208–11,
173–74, 195 267–74, 305, 318–26
isomorphic diffusion, 82–83, 115–16
ideological sects, 69–70 isomorphic emulation, 85–86, 92–93,
ideological struggle, 128 101–2, 135
imitation efforts, 145–48 counterrevolutionary suppression of,
imperialism, 32 108–11
finance capitalism and, 52 failure of, 129–30
Nazis and, 204 Russian Revolution and, 131
Imrédy, Béla, 286–87 isomorphic imitation, 117, 167–68, 265
industrialization, 44, 62, 143–44, 173–74 isomorphic revolution, 96–99
inferential heuristics, 12–13, 70 Italy, 27–28, 128–29
fears of status-quo defenders and, 103–5 autocratic regression in, 116
SPD and, 107 corporatist system of interest
inhumanity, 13–14 representation, 154
institutional engineering, 315–16 fascism emergence in, 8–10
institutional weakness, 44 isomorphic imitation of Italian fascism,
Integralismo, 243–44, 246–51, 253 167–68
Integralists (Brazil), 31 labor movement in, 117–18
interest-based reservations, 290 nationalism and, 125
Interior Ministry (Germany), 165–66 northern, 113
interpretive flexibility, 14 novel model of fascism in, 128
interwar democracies, challenges facing, precedent set by fascism in, 150–51
45–49 pre-revolutionary, 122–27
interwar reverse wave, 5–6, 8–9, 27, 40, red years of, 120–21
289–90, 314, 318–26 status-quo defenders and, 128–29
advance of, 202
complexity of, 41–45, 291 Japan, 27–28, 144
conservative authoritarianism and, Jünger, Ernst, 170–71
195–96
global repercussions of, 27–28 Kaiserreich, 89, 97, 112, 147, 162
Russian Revolution and, 75–76 collapse of, 118, 174, 184–85
interwar years, 3–4, 50–51, 330–31 overthrow of, 166–67
autocracy and, 56–57, 312 Kapp Putsch, 180
bounded rationality and, 321–25 Kerensky, Alexander, 79, 87–88, 199–200
conservative authoritarianism and, Kershaw, Ian, 5, 326
212–13 Kessler, Harry, 104–5
 Index 377

Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands leftwing extremism, 7, 10–11, 52–53,

(KPD), 86–87, 112–13, 138–39, 55–56, 81–82, 89–90, 135, 176–77
159–60, 171, 180–81 leftwing parties, 103
electoral success of, 182–83 leftwing radicalism, 194–95, 321
negative majority held by, 179–80 leftwing revolution, 195, 306–7
perceived threat from, 191 leftwing uprisings, 25–26
public protests and, 165–66 leftwingers, 75–76, 132–35, 239–40, 315,
threat from, 183–84 323
violence and, 161 collapse of Kaiserreich and, 97
Kun, Béla, 93, 95–96, 108, 120–21, 136–37 collective action, 233
elections and, 326–27
labor contention, 199 Germany and, 78–80, 86–87
labor markets, 231–32 moderate, 101
labor movement, 117–18, 165, 234, 295 repression of, 239–40
labor unions, 238–39 Russian Revolution and, 39, 52, 99
land redistribution, 140–41 violent backlash against, 103, 122–23
land reform, 208, 231–32 Legion of the Archangel Michael. See Iron
landless laborers, 124, 140, 231–32 Guard (Romania)
landowners, 50–51, 124, 248–49 legitimists, 34–35
Lapua Movement (Finland), 31, 262–63, Lenin, V. I., 5–7, 95, 294, 317–18
265, 295–97 attempts to imitate, 115
Latin America, 8, 12, 27–28, 42, 134–35, authoritarianism and, 24–25
202–3, 290, 306–7, 315 Comintern and, 134
Communism and, 139 disciples of, 18, 303–4, 324
Cuban Revolution and, 41, 43–44, emulators of, 55
315–16 ideological battles provoked by, 59
installation of authoritarian regimes in, Mühsam and, 90–91
320–21 precedent set by, 87
populism and, 293–94 success of, 10–11, 48–49, 52–53, 71,
Latvia, 96–97, 116, 204, 207, 261 84–86, 90, 261, 319–20
Baltic-German nobles and, 140 vanguard party of, 50
conservative elites in, 196 world revolution and, 118–19
democracy and, 266 Leviné, Eugen, 77, 91–92
isomorphic imitation of Estonia, liberal democracy, 1–3, 9–10, 72–73, 120,
265 202–3, 260–61, 320, 325–26,
land redistribution and, 140–41 329–30
mainstream conservatives in, 265–66 anarchists and, 233–34
threat of Bolshevism to, 139–40 bounded rationality and, 118
Thunder Cross movement, 265–66 Communism and, 165
law and order, 160–61, 244–45 fragility of, 3, 8, 15–16
law of empowerment hollowing out of, 300–1
(Ermächtigungsgesetz), 187–88, life-and-death struggles of, 70
278–79 Machtergreifung and, 261–62
Lebensraum, 158 overthrow of, 318
Ledesma Ramos, Ramiro, 25 political regime development away from,
leftist radicalism, 54, 97–98, 111–12, 45
118–19, 213–14, 240 principles of, 247
fascism and, 155–56 rejection of, 228
isomorphic diffusion and, 82–83 resurgence of, 315–16
rightwingers and, 223 status-quo defenders and, 315
leftwing action, 299 survival of, 115–16, 155–56
378 Index

liberal democracy (cont.) mainstream parties, 118

turn away from, 4 Mann, Thomas, 104–5
weakness of, 331–32 Mannerheim, Carl, 296–97
Liberal Party (Romania), 208–9 Manoilescu, Mihail, 211–12
liberal pluralism. See pluralism March on Brussels, 145–46
liberal revolution, 104 March on Budapest, 145–46, 151
liberalism, 1, 3–4, 29, 59, 109, 229, March on Helsinki, 295–96
255–56, 290, 312, 328 March on Rome, 20, 59–60, 143–48, 190,
abandonment of, 73–74 253–54, 269, 283–84
anti-, 32, 229–30 March on the Feldherrnhalle, 20, 150
authoritarianism and, 9 Marx, Karl, 29–31
benefits of, 327 Marxism, 8, 49, 134, 161, 171, 247–48
conservative support for, 291–92 fascism fight against, 60
freedom of speech and, 134–35 Hitler on, 166
internal contradictions of, 165–66 revolutionary, 198
motherland of, 303 mass executions, 110–11
Mussolini and, 56 mass immigration, 328–29
rejection of, 121–22 mass mobilization, 203, 288–89, 314–15
weakness of, 141–42 Maurras, Charles, 297
WWI, liberal regimes emerging after, 162 McAdams, James, 80–81
Libya, 66–67 Mein Kampf (Hitler), 136, 149, 166–67,
Liebknecht, Karl, 79–80, 87–88, 106–7, 169–70
109–12 Metaxas, Ioannis, 199
Linz, Juan, 10, 20–21, 23–24, 30, 46–47, Mezzogiorno, 62
63, 225–26, 329 micro-foundations, 65
Lisbon, 27 Middle Ages, 35
Lithuania, 97, 148, 287 middle class, 236–37, 248–49, 267
democracy and, 199–200 Middle East, 41, 315
threat of Bolshevism to, 139–40 military coups, 160, 308, 320–21
loss aversion, 13, 69–70, 113, 124, 308 military dictatorship, 114–16, 242–43,
asymmetrical, 19, 151–52, 315–17, 257–58, 271–75, 310, 315
324–25 military rule, 41, 43
cognitive shortcuts and, 71–72 anti-Communism and, 62–63
disproportionate, 67–68 militias, 111
elections and, 118 mobilizational dynamism, 21–22
motivating force of, 101–2 moderate reactionaries, 34–35
white terror and, 128 modernization, 44–45, 62, 160, 173–74,
Luebbert, Gregory, 20–21 243–44
Luxemburg, Rosa, 11–12, 88–89, 109–10, modernization theory, 44–45, 142
166–67, 322 Møller, Jørgen, 44–45
Mommsen, Hans, 89–90, 102–3
Machtergreifung, 40, 45–46, 63, 73, 203–5, Moore, Barrington, 331
261 Moroccan protectorate, 241
Codreanu and, 210–11 Moscow, 99, 155–56
Dollfuß and, 278–79 Mühsam, Erich, 90–91
elections and, 285 Müller, Richard, 88, 92
influence of, 298 Munich, Germany, 90–92, 94, 110–11
labor movement and, 234 Mussolini, Benito, 9, 17, 32, 47–48, 57–58,
liberal democracy and, 261–62 310
replications of, 218 achievements in Italy, 59–60
specter of fascism and, 318 administration of, 126–27
 Index 379

appeal of, 142–44, 156, 158 anti-Semitism and, 159–60, 166, 203
Black Shirt movement and, 126–27 Italy and, 125
Carta del Lavoro, 222–23, 241, 257–58 militant, 174
counterrevolutionary violence and, NSDAP and, 178–79
128–29 Poland and, 201
disciples of, 72, 281 rightwingers and, 46–47, 229–30
DNVP and, 172–73 socialism and, 170–71
doctrine of fascism of, 30 nationalization
efforts to follow in footsteps of, 18–19 of business, 98–99
factory occupations and, 124 of factories, 95
fascist emulation of, 148–52 Nationalsozialistische Deutsche
followers of, 156, 220–21, 305–6 Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), 45–46,
Franco and, 241 161, 166, 169, 182
hegemonic ambitions of, 215 anti-Communism and, 187
Heimwehr and, 279–80 Austrian Nazi party and, 276
Hitler emulation of, 148–52 campaigning of, 176–77
Hitler going beyond, 188 charisma of Hitler and, 169–70
imitators of, 215, 299 dividing, 181–82
liberalism and, 56 electoral success of, 171
March on Rome, 20, 59–60, 143–48, nationalism and, 178–79
253–54, 269, 283–84 negative majority held by, 179–80
mass support for, 308 paramilitaries and, 178
normative attraction of, 219, 227 personalism and, 169–70
northern Italy and, 113 rightwing coalition partners of, 187–88
Papen and, 180 Schleicher and, 180–81
paramilitary violence and, 103 support base of, 170–71
Perón and, 310 veto power of, 190
precedents of, 21–22, 179, 184, 191 young people and, 171–72
Primo de Rivera, M., and, 152–55 Nazis, 159–60, 165, 172, 182–83, 259, 265
rise of, 133 Austrian conservatives struggles with,
success of, 144, 167, 225 275–81
takeover of, 143 Austrian Nazi party, 276
violence and, 238, 317–18 defeat of, 311–12
disaster wrought by, 325
National Legionary State (Romania), dramatic advance of, 262–63
22–23, 197–98, 225–26, 272–74, imperialism and, 204
305 military conquest by, 305
National Socialism, 2–3, 20–21, 29–32, paramilitaries and, 188
58–59, 242, 297–98. See also plebeian radicalism of, 190
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche power grab by, 205–6
Arbeiterpartei specter of, 261
atrocities of, 59 starting to lose support, 183–84
conservative elites and, 193 Vaps Movement and, 263
horrors of, 326 Netherlands, 10
installation of, 191 New Deal, 223–24
origins of, 162 new state (Estado Nôvo), 179–80, 251–52
rise, 112–13 nihilism, 141
world-historical significance of, 28, 325 Nolte, Ernst, 25
National Syndicalism (Portugal), 257–59 normative diffusion, 17
nationalism, 1–2, 22, 118–21, 140, 215, norms cascades, 14–15
308, 328 Noske, Gustav, 106, 108
380 Index

November Revolution of 1918, 107 preservation of, 303, 313

NSDAP. See Nationalsozialistische promotion of, 115–16
Deutsche Arbeiterpartei threats to, 140–41
Poland, 43, 201, 303
October Revolution. See Russian political freedom, 197
Revolution political interests, 17–18
opportunism, 227 political opinion, 77
Orbán, Viktor, 329 political opportunity, 12–13
organization building, 203 political party organization, 120
organizational macro-structures, 68–70 political setbacks, 15
organizational structures, 70 Pope, 124–25
organized coercion, 146–47 Popular Front (France), 299–301
Popular Front (Spain), 232, 235–38, 245,
Pais, Sidónio, 253–54 308
Papen, Franz von, 177, 179–80, 183–85 popular mobilization, 309–10
Paraguay, 144, 202–3 populism, 1–3, 29, 328–30
paramilitaries, 39–42, 103, 126, 130, fascism and, 305–12, 329–30
218–19, 222, 226, 247–48, 288–89 Latin America and, 293–94
Nazis and, 188 suffocation of democracy and, 331–32
NSDAP and, 178 Portugal, 10, 28, 137, 196, 229, 253–60
Portuguese Legion, 258–59 authoritarianism, hardening of, 324–25
violence by, 103, 132 Blue Shirts, 31, 256
Weimar Republic and, 173 National Syndicalism, 257–59
paramilitary movements, 146–47 red danger in, 199
Pareto-optimal, 18 Salgado exile to, 250–51
Paris Commune, 78, 297 Portuguese Legion, 258–59
parliamentarism, 46–47, 129 power concentration, 212, 229
Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI), 123 Prestes, Luiz Carlos, 244, 252
party coalitions, 29, 292–93, 302–4 Preto, Rolão, 31, 255–57
party systems, 29, 200–1 Primo de Rivera, José Antonio, 237, 240–41
patronage politics, 44 Primo de Rivera, Miguel, 152–55, 222–23,
Päts, Konstantin, 263–66, 296–97 231, 237–39
Payne, Stanley, 60, 234–35 principal-agent relationships, 214
peasant uprisings, 95 private property, 95
peasants, 50–51, 140–41, 231–32, 235–36, profound reactionaries, 35
288–89 progressive reforms, 309–10
people’s community (Volksgemeinschaft), propaganda, 126–27, 140–41, 221, 226,
57–58, 170–71 251
Perón, Juan, 293–94, 305–12 Prussia, 149–50, 180
personalism, 44, 169–70 PSI. See Partito Socialista Italiano
personalistic leaders, 1–2, 213–14 psychological warfare, 126–27
Peru, 144, 309–10 public protests, 165–66
Pĕtka (Czechoslovakia), 302 Putin, Vladimir, 41
Peukert, Detlev, 62, 159, 165–66 putschism, 54–55
Piłsudski, Józef, 201, 303
Plano Cohen, 246 Quadragesimo Anno, 223–24
pluralism, 29, 43, 56, 72–73, 116–17, 216,
310–11 Radek, Karl, 139–40
destruction of, 133, 193 Radical Civic Union (Argentina), 118
France and, 301 Radical Party (Argentina), 306–7, 311–12
limited, 23, 224 rational choice, 14–15, 65, 67, 69, 325
 Index 381

rationality, 65, 68. See also bounded rightwing ideas, 33–34

rationality rightwing radicalism, 321
debates over, 102–3 rightwing repression, 128–29
political, 83 rightwingers, 6–9, 33–34, 59–60, 75–76,
procedures for enhancing, 68–69 81–82, 149–50, 174–75, 263, 315,
reaction 322–23
counterrevolutionary, 13–14, 29 anti-Communism and, 229–30
moderate reactionaries, 34–35 dictatorship and, 266
political, 34–35 extreme, 266, 299
profound reactionaries, 35 fascism appeal to, 39
reactionaries fears of Communism of, 9–10
in Hungary, 102–3 ideological affinities of, 229–30
weaknesses of, 172–75 interwar years and, 25–26
reactionary autocracy, 127, 198, 276 leftist radicalism and, 223
reactionary backlashes, 41–42, 199, 314–15 mainstream, 190
reactionary counter-diffusion, 129–30 nationalism and, 46–47, 229–30
reactionary dictatorships, 115, 198, 282 panic among, 323
reactionary elites, 122–23 radical, 35, 147–48, 156
reactionary extremists, 163 Romania in, 267
reactionary forces, 159 status-quo defenders and, 220
reactionary regime changes, 25–26 strength gained by, 73, 228
reactionary rule, 15–16, 22–23, 29–30, 34, suppression of leftwing uprisings, 26
48 victorious, 121–22
recession, 195 Rio de Janeiro, 82, 99
red danger, 199 Rojas Pinilla, Gustavo, 306–7
Red Guards (Finland), 82–83 Romania, 9, 11–12, 42–43, 63, 202–3, 206,
red scare, 109 212
red terror, 11–12, 108 conservative authoritarianism and,
regime change, 12 267–75
regime trajectories, 116–18 conservative elites in, 196
Reichstag, 179–82 fascism and, 208–12, 267–75
Reichstagsbrand, 187–88 Hitler and, 47
Reichswehr, 112, 147, 179–81, 185 Iron Guard, 31, 145, 208–11, 267–74,
revisionism, 49 305, 318–26
revolution. See Communist revolution; Liberal Party, 208–9
world revolution; Specific National Legionary State, 22–23,
revolutions 197–98, 225–26, 272–74, 305
revolutionary emulation, 55 rightwingers in, 267
Revolutionary Shop Stewards (Germany), self-coups in, 324–25
77–79, 87 status-quo defenders and, 229
revolutionary strategy, 135–36 Transylvania and, 140
revolutionary threat, 116–18 Romanov autocracy, 51
Rexists (Belgium), 31, 145–46 Romanov Empire, 96–97, 134
rightwing backlash, 228–29 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 144, 223–24
rightwing counter-mobilization, 299 Rothschild, Joseph, 102–3, 199–200, 222
rightwing counterrevolutionaries, 62 royal dictatorship, 11–12, 199–201,
rightwing extremism, 10–11, 176–77, 221–22, 267, 269–70
207–8, 261, 326 Ruhr War, 85–86, 92–93
anti-Communism and, 301 rule of law, 112–13
paramilitaries and, 39–40 Runkel, Friedrich, 104–5
upsurge of, 267 rural grievances, 139–40
382 Index

rural redistribution, 140 Social Democracy, 105–6, 132, 159,

Russian civil war, 132 217–18
Russian – Polish War of 1920, 201 Comintern and, 205
Russian Revolution, 5–7, 12–13, 26, 34, 67, Freikorps and, 112–13
144, 198–99, 314, 323–24, 330–31. German, 106
See also Bolshevism leaders of, 109–10
attempts to emulate, 70–71, 92 mainstream, 107, 138–39
backlash to, 130 overreaction by, 111
cognitive heuristics and, 76–82 suppression by, 113
Cuban Revolution and, 321 Social Democratic Party (Austria), 234,
demonstration effects of, 51–54 275–76, 280
deterrent effects of, 54–57 social inequality, 1
fear of, 57 social-democratic parties, 49
imitation efforts launched by, 82, 99–100 Social-Democratic Party (Finland), 82–83
impact of, 49–51, 77 socialism in one country, 134
inspiration by, 99 Socialist Party (Argentina), 306–7
interwar reverse wave and, 75–76 Socialist Party (Estonia), 264
isomorphic emulation and, 131 Socialist Party (Spain), 233–34
leftist radicalism and, 223 socialist revolution, 6, 50, 52–53
leftwingers and, 39, 52, 99 Socialist Workers’ Party (Finland), 119–20
Pope and, 124–25 societal groupings (Gleichschaltung), 158
precedent of, 137, 194–95, 316–17 socioeconomic crises, 195
shockwaves from, 71 socioeconomic deprivation, 175
Social Democracy and, 105–6 socioeconomic development, 44–45
threat posed by, 316 socioeconomic redistribution, 331
uncertainty created by, 111 sociopolitical elites, 61
sociopolitical stability, 140–41, 224
SA. See Stormtroopers Sorel, Georges, 141
Salazar, António de Oliveira, 27, 47–48, 63, South America, 3–4, 7
137, 179–80, 205–6, 221–22, South Tyrol, 215
225–26, 253–60, 267–68 Soviet Union (USSR), 6–7, 54, 81, 132, 138,
Salgado, Plínio, 243–44, 246–53, 320–21 199, 262, 294, 325–26
São Paulo, 243–44 Communism promoted by, 254–55
Sartori, Giovanni, 31–32 Hitler attack on, 259–60
Scheidemann, Philipp, 80–81, 106 military support from, 93–94
Schleicher, Kurt von, 169–70, 179–85, 188, support from, 132–33
205 survival of, 134–36
Schuschnigg, Kurt von, 280–81 world revolution and, 73
Second Republic (Spain), 231 Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands
secret police, 226 (SPD) (Germany), 6–7, 52–53,
Seeckt, Hans von, 112, 147 80–81, 87–89, 106, 118, 161–62,
self-coup, 40, 243–53, 260, 265–66, 171
279–81, 304, 318, 324–25 alliances with reactionary forces, 111
self-regarding interests, 14–15 DVP and, 175–76
Sforza, Carlo, 123–24 inferential heuristics, 107
Sikorski, Władysław, 139–40 losing support, 161
Sima, Horia, 270–73 mass base of, 109–10
Sirk, Artur, 262–63 pluralism and, 216
Skaaning, Svend-Erik, 44–45 Prussia and, 180
Slovakia, 94 revisionist strategy followed by, 106–7
social Darwinism, 141 welfare state and, 175
 Index 383

Spain, 28, 229, 322 Sudetendeutsche (Czechoslovakia), 301–2,

Asturias, 234 304
Civil War, 205, 231–43, 245, Svinhufvud, Pehr, 296–97
268–69 Sweden, 312
Communism, Spanish conservatives and, Switzerland, 84, 117
258 Syria, 66–67
conservative elites in, 236–37 Szálasi, Ferenc, 287–89
Falange, 31, 231, 237–43
Hitler and, 234–35 terror
Moroccan protectorate, 241 counter-, 14
Popular Front, 232, 235–38, 245, 308 red, 11–12, 108
Republican areas of, 239 white, 11–12, 102–3, 108–9, 128
Second Republic, 231 terrorism, 270, 328–29
Socialist Party, 233–34 Thirty Years’ War, 108
violence erupting in, 236 Thunder Cross movement (Latvia), 265–66
Spartakus Group, 79–80, 86 Tikka, Marko, 102–3
Spartakus League, 87, 104, 146–47 Toller, Ernst, 91–92
Spartakus Uprising, 11–12, 85–90, 92, top-down coercion, 128
104–5, 322 totalitarianism, 23–24, 60–64, 162,
Ebert and, 112–13 177–81, 315–16. See also fascism,
inspiration from, 110 totalitarian
local challenges stimulated by, 117 all-encompassing, 58
Noske and, 106, 108 anti-Semitism and, 284
Scheidemann and, 106 authoritarianism and, 24, 197–98,
SPD. See Sozialdemokratische Partei 225–26, 329
Deutschlands centralizing, 224
Spencer, Herbert, 141 dynamic, 225, 289
Stahlhelm (Steel Helmet), 172–74 energetic, 9
Stanley, Jason, 2–3 establishment sectors and, 133
Starhemberg, Rüdiger von, 160 failure of, 328
status-quo defenders, 99–100, 131, 134, fascism as rightwing variant of, 31–33
229, 267, 317–18 full-scale, 188–89
Communism and, 115, 132–33 Germany descent into, 281
concerns of, 217 hyper-mobilization, 185–86
conservative authoritarianism and, ideas shaping, 36
326–27 mobilizational, 103, 130, 255–56
defensive capacities of, 118–20 of German fascism, 188–89
excessive reaction of, 101 reactionary, 133
fears of, 103–5 rightwing, 127, 189–90, 310
Finland and, 118–19 unadulterated, 188
Italy and, 128–29 trade unions, 182–83, 224
liberal democracy and, 315 traditional dictatorship, 20–21
rightwingers and, 220 transnational influences, 21–24
strength of, 321–22 Transylvania, 140
targeted coercion by, 116–17 Traverso, Enzo, 2–3, 25
weakness of, 130 trienio bolchevique, 153–54
Steel Helmet (Stahlhelm), 172–74 Troelstra, Pieter, 84–85
Sternhell, Zeev, 32–33 Troelstra’s mistake, 117
Stormtroopers (SA), 178–79 Trotsky, Leon, 96
Strasser, Gregor, 169–70, 182–83 Trump, Donald, 1–3, 315–16, 328–30
Strasser, Otto, 32–33 Tsarist regime, 76–77, 79–80
384 Index

Tunisia, 66–67 Volksgemeinschaft (people’s community),

Turkey, 41, 164 57–58, 170–71
Vorwärts (newspaper), 106
Ulmanis, Kārlis, 265 voter intimidation, 209
ultra-left, 89, 113
ultra-rightists, 149 Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, 104
underdeveloped countries, 256 wehrhafte Demokratie (well-fortified
unemployment, 195 democracy), 327–28
United States (US), 109, 223–24 Wehrmacht, 289
fascism and, 202–3 Weimar Coalition, 118
midterm elections of 2018, 330 Weimar conditions, 2–3
urban property, 95 Weimar Germany, 34
urbanization, 44, 62, 173–74 Weimar Republic, 114, 138–39
Uriburu, José, 307–8 birth defects of, 160–62
Uruguay, 43–44 crisis in, 149–50
US. See United States descent of, 114–15
USSR. See Soviet Union Great Depression and, 162
Ustaša (Croatia), 305 paramilitary groupings and, 173
penultimate phase of, 300–1
Valois, Georges, 145–46, 298 Peukert and, 159
vanguard party, 50, 88 political stabilization achieved by, 175
Vaps Movement (Estonia), 262–63 strengths of, 162–64, 189–90
Vargas, Getúlio, 27, 137, 205, 243–53, weaknesses of, 189–90
267–68 Weitz, Eric, 92–93
Vernunftrepublikaner, 34 welfare state, 175
Versailles, 164, 188 well-fortified democracy (wehrhafte
Versailles Treaty, 178–79, 325–26 Demokratie), 327–28
Vichy regime (France), 298, 300–1 white terror, 11–12, 102–3, 108–9, 128
Vienna, 94, 275–76 white working class, 1
violence, 13, 81–82, 115, 153–54, 229–30, worker mobilization, 97
270, 297, 299–300 worker movements, 103
against Catholic Church, 239–40 working class, 50
backlash against leftwingers, 103, 122–23 world revolution, 55, 73, 80, 118–19, 132,
by paramilitaries, 103, 132 314
celebration of, 141 Germany and, 85–86
counterrevolutionary, 110–15, 128–29 imminent advance of, 93
dictatorship and, 324–25 World War I (WWI), 3–4, 102
disproportionate, 315 brutalities of, 321
excess of, 11, 322–23 catastrophe of, 34
Freikorps and, 160–61 devastations of, 141
Hitler and, 324–25 end of, 83
indiscriminate, 220 Hungary’s mutilation by victors of, 93–94
KPD and, 161 Italian nationalism and, 125
legacies of, 74 legacies of violence left behind by, 74
Mussolini and, 238, 317–18 liberal regimes emerging after, 162
revolutionary, 102–3 repercussions of, 41–42
Spain, erupting in, 236 strains of, 49
systematic, 154–55 winners and losers of, 194
used to combat Communism, 317–18 World War II (WWII), 10, 29
vitalism, 32 fascism, spread during, 62–63
Voldemaras, Augustinas, 287 fascism self-destruction in, 321
 Index 385

hegemonic shock from, 306 Yrigoyen, Hipólito, 311–12

Vichy regime and, 300–1 Yugoslavia, 42–43,
WWI. See World War I 200–1
WWII. See World War II
Zeitgeist, 15–17, 47–48, 141–42, 212–13,
Yemen, 66–67 330–31
young people, 171–72 Ziblatt, Daniel, 2–3
youth movements, 225–26, 259 Ziemann, Benjamin, 104