Modern connotations of "fascism" in mainstream Western society are unflinchingly negative, heavily associated with the historical regimes of Mussolini and Hitler begun before the Second World War. It seems impossible to believe that the people of such an entrenched democratic country as Great Britain could ever harbor mainstream fascist leanings. However, fascism was not always such a vilified ideology in the West. In the late 1920s and 1930s in Great Britain, fascism was often admired by the public. During Britain's deep economic depression, many pointed to emerging autocracies in Italy and Germany as powerful new examples of effective modern government. The celebrated young British Member of Parliament Oswald Mosley became especially enamored of this new ideology in the early 1930s. Mosley created the British Union of Fascists as a vehicle for his economic vision of Britain as a Keynesian economic state, with an emphasis on deficit spending. After a period of initial popularity, his movement eventually became a haven for anti-Semites and fringe members of society. As Mosley became lost within the monster he created, frequent public violence at his group's rallies made him a national pariah. The impact of Mosley and his British Union of Fascists on British attitudes towards fascism cannot be underestimated. While it would seem that fascism's unpopularity was brought on by external forces, it was really Mosley's movement on the home front that initially turned the British public against the ideology. It was Oswald Mosley, not Hitler or Mussolini, who did the most to ensure Britain remained a free democracy and never succumbed to fascism.  [Article]

Colonel François de La Rocque is best known as the leader of a militant French right wing league, the Croix de Feu. He has been widely branded a fascist and a traitor due to his prominent role in acts of political violence during the 1930’s, most notably the riots of the 6th of February 1934. In 1936, the Croix de Feu was rearranged into the Parti Social Français (PSF), the largest single political party in France in the years just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. The PSF likely played a role in defining the ideology of the Vichy regime after the defeat of 1940, as evidenced by Marshal Pétain’s adoption of the PSF’s slogan as the motto of his regime. In 1942, La Rocque broke with Vichy over its collaboration with the German occupation and formed a resistance organization. I investigate La Rocque’s actions during the Second World War, as well as efforts by his family and former followers to influence memory of his actions after his death in 1946. La Rocque’s story provides an alternative narrative of the French resistance against the German occupation, one in which it was possible to be both loyal to Pétain and active in the Resistance. This paper seeks to complicate the monolithic popular image of the Resistance, and also to reframe debates over La Rocque’s political career within the context of his complex wartime experience.   [Article]

France, in the years following the First World War, was a bruised and battered country. Out of the political, economic, and social confusion sprang up a number of political and social movements on both the left and the right. Following France’s dubious involvement with the invading German presence during World War II, many scholars have turned their attention to these inter-war movements to better understand the period of the Vichy Regime and German collaboration. Of the organizations on the right, the most numerous was the Croix de Feu, originally a movement of veterans. For years, scholars have debated the true character of this organization, almost always asking the question: was it fascist? In an attempt to contribute to the answer to this still unanswered question, this article studies the youth branch of the Croix de Feu and compares its essential characteristics to those of the fascist counter parts in Germany and Italy. In comparing and contrasting the characteristics of violence, the cult of the leader, the subjugation of the individual to the whole, racism, and the authenticity of youthfulness in these movements, this article makes the argument that the youth movement of the Croix de Feu was not fascistic, merely conservative.  [Article]