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Beginning in 1943, the War Department published a
series of pamphlets for U.S. Army personnel in the European theater of World
War II. Titled Army Talks, the series
was designed “to help [the personnel] become better-informed men and women
and therefore better soldiers.”
On March 24, 1945, the topic for the week was “FASCISM!”
“You are away from home, separated from your families, no longer at a
civilian job or at school and many of you are risking your very lives,” the
pamphlet explained, “because of a thing called fascism.” But, the publication
asked, what is fascism? “Fascism is not the easiest thing to identify and
analyze,” it said, “nor, once in power, is it easy to destroy. It is
important for our future and that of the world that as many of us as possible
understand the causes and practices of fascism, in order to combat it.”
Fascism, the U.S. government document explained, “is government by the few
and for the few. The objective is seizure and control of the economic,
political, social, and cultural life of the state.” “The people run
democratic governments, but fascist governments run the people.”
“The basic principles of democracy stand in the way of their desires;
hence—democracy must go! Anyone who is not a member of their inner gang has
to do what he’s told. They permit no civil liberties, no equality before the
law.” “Fascism treats women as mere breeders. ‘Children, kitchen, and the
church,’ was the Nazi slogan for women,” the pamphlet said.
Fascists “make their own rules and change them when they choose…. They
maintain themselves in power by use of force combined with propaganda based
on primitive ideas of ‘blood’ and ‘race,’ by skillful manipulation of fear
and hate, and by false promise of security. The propaganda glorifies war and
insists it is smart and ‘realistic’ to be pitiless and violent.”
Fascists understood that “the fundamental principle of democracy—faith in the
common sense of the common people—was the direct opposite of the fascist
principle of rule by the elite few,” it explained, “[s]o they fought
democracy…. They played political, religious, social, and economic groups
against each other and seized power while these groups struggled.”
Americans should not be fooled into thinking that fascism could not come to
America, the pamphlet warned; after all, “[w]e once laughed Hitler off as a
harmless little clown with a funny mustache.” And indeed, the U.S. had
experienced “sorry instances of mob sadism, lynchings, vigilantism, terror,
and suppression of civil liberties. We have had our hooded gangs, Black
Legions, Silver Shirts, and racial and religious bigots. All of them, in the
name of Americanism, have used undemocratic methods and doctrines which…can
be properly identified as ‘fascist.’”
The War Department thought it was important for Americans to understand the
tactics fascists would use to take power in the United States. They would try
to gain power “under the guise of ‘super-patriotism’ and
‘super-Americanism.’” And they would use three techniques:
First, they would pit religious, racial, and economic groups against one
another to break down national unity. Part of that effort to divide and
conquer would be a “well-planned ‘hate campaign’ against minority races,
religions, and other groups.”
Second, they would deny any need for international cooperation, because that
would fly in the face of their insistence that their supporters were better
than everyone else. “In place of international cooperation, the fascists seek
to substitute a perverted sort of ultra-nationalism which tells their people
that they are the only people in the world who count. With this goes hatred
and suspicion toward the people of all other nations.”
Third, fascists would insist that “the world has but two choices—either
fascism or communism, and they label as ‘communists’ everyone who refuses to
support them.”
It is “vitally important” to learn to spot native fascists, the government
said, “even though they adopt names and slogans with popular appeal, drape
themselves with the American flag, and attempt to carry out their program in
the name of the democracy they are trying to destroy.”
The only way to stop the rise of fascism in the United States, the document
said, “is by making our democracy work and by actively cooperating to
preserve world peace and security.” In the midst of the insecurity of the
modern world, the hatred at the root of fascism “fulfills a triple mission.”
By dividing people, it weakens democracy. “By getting men to hate rather than
to think,” it prevents them “from seeking the real cause and a democratic
solution to the problem.” By falsely promising prosperity, it lures people to
embrace its security.
“Fascism thrives on indifference and ignorance,” it warned. Freedom requires
“being alert and on guard against the infringement not only of our own
freedom but the freedom of every American. If we permit discrimination,
prejudice, or hate to rob anyone of his democratic rights, our own
freedom and all democracy is threatened.” And if “we want to make certain
that fascism does not come to America, we must make certain that it does not
thrive anywhere in the world.”
Seventy-eight years after the publication of “FASCISM!” with its program for
recognizing that political system and stopping it from taking over the United
States, President Joe Biden today at Arlington National Cemetery in
Arlington, Virginia, honored those who gave their lives fighting to preserve
democracy. “On this day, we come together again to reflect, to remember, but
above all, to recommit to the future our fallen heroes fought for, …a future
grounded in freedom, democracy, equality, tolerance, opportunity,
and…justice.”
“[T]he truest memorial to their lives,” the president said, is to act “every
day to ensure that our democracy endures, our Constitution endures, and the
soul of our nation and our decency endures.”
—
Notes:
https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=armytalks
War Department, “Army Talk 64: FASCISM!” March 24,
1945, at https://archive.org/details/ArmyTalkOrientationFactSheet64-Fascism/mode/2up
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/05/29/remarks-by-president-biden-at-the-155th-national-memorial-day-observance/
https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1663379851716198400
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© 2023 Heather Cox
Richardson
548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104
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