Its origins have been argued over, and sourced to different thinkers such as Rousseau, Fichte, Carlyle, Hegel, Nietzche and even Plato, in his Republic (Segre, 2002). Political theorists, historians and writers all contributed in the 18th and 19th century to the development of European fascist thought. Joseph de Maistre despised the Enlightenment for taking power away from religion and traditional elites, just as Hippolyte Taine condemned the rise to power of the masses, whom he suggested were biologically inferior to aristocrats (RoSo, 2002). The ideology has been linked by some scholars to the socially radical Jacobins of the French Revolution, but others see it as a reactionary extreme-right conservatism against the 19th-century ideals of the Enlightenment (RoSo, 2002). The motivation of fascism is also disputed as either being one of aspirations (for a cultural "regeneration") or of anxieties (e.g. for a communist revolution); both of these points of view are legitimate (RoSo, 2002). Therefore, there is no one, universal fascism.
There are four major, established interpretations of fascism: fascism as a crisis of the liberal state, totalitarianism, the extreme right, and as a revolt against modernity (Segre, 2002). In the 1920s and 30s, liberal policies and institutions had failed, and fascism has only prospered politically in times of either economic crisis, or fear of communist take-over (or both). Mussolini capitalized on the uninspired leadership, weak government and economic chaos that fell on Italy during this time to glorify authoritarian and military virtues, and he successfully took power on his October 28th, 1922 "March on Rome" (RoSo, 2002). The interpretation of fascism of totalitarianism came from comparisons to communism. Both Hitler and Stalin engaged in the Holocaust and mass-murder "purges" respectively, and both had ambitions for total control over their own citizens: privacy was a crime against the state (Segre, 2002).
