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Poor record in war

I recently added a description of arguments for the failures of fascist governments to achieve success in wartime. It was reverted, but no policy-based objection was presented, so I've restored the content but I'm also starting a section here for further evaluation.

The content is sourced to Philip Morgan, Umberto Eco, etc, so I think it's fairly clear that there's enough weight for inclusion. Also, while I decided to put it in the Criticism section, the sourcing is clearly sufficient to frame it as a factual description instead: something like Fascism failed when evaluated on its own terms(ref Morgan2004a), etc. So that's a valid alternative, but one that would give the topic more weight rather than less.

Perhaps I missed some dissenting sources when I was researching this topic, or perhaps I could have put a greater emphasis on the attribution, etc; please feel free to edit the content accordingly (of course, I will not be reverting again today due to 1RR). However, the reasoning given for the objection - basically, that the fascists achieved initial success and then only lost due to how strong their enemies were - appears to be entirely OR that isn't supported by the sources. (In fact, it's directly contradicted by one of them, an expert SPS from a historian: Starting a war in which you will be outnumbered, ganged up on, outproduced and then smashed flat: that is being bad at war.) Sunrise (talk) 14:32, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

I have also reverted this content as WP:EDITORIALIZING. I don't agree with Trakking's rationale in their edit summary, because the content you're seeking to add is broadly correct, but that is beside the point. This content is not encyclopedic in WP:TONE. I'm sure there is a way to summarize these sources that is encyclopedic, but we need to make sure that the article doesn't come across as persuasive writing. Generalrelative (talk) 14:47, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps it's as simple as saying: historians A, B, and C argue that fascism failed on its own terms. Note that while Eco's essay is a classic, he's speaking from personal experience rather than as a subject-matter expert in the strict sense –– so I think we should handle that source differently. Generalrelative (talk) 14:51, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Hello. Thank you for the clarification, although I have three objections. Firstly, pointing out the fact that the Axis powers lost World War II does not constitute a "criticism" against fascism. Secondly, the phrase "poor record in war" is weird since the statistic is simply 0-1. Thirdly, the Axis powers did seem indomitable up until 1943 when the tide was turning.

That being said, Eco's comment is still quite interesting. How about you incorporate it into some more adequate section of the article—and, as Generalrelative advised you, express it in a more scholarly manner? Trakking (talk) 18:19, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to workshop copy at article talk too. From the discussion I'm seeing it looks like a good addition to the article could be hammered out that could achieve consensus. Simonm223 (talk) 19:08, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments, everyone.

@Generalrelative: Personally, I strongly disagree that the tone is non-encyclopedic, rather than simply reflecting a factual record that is inherently unflattering to fascism. The parts that can be interpreted as persuasive, in my view, are just following the arguments presented in the sources. That said, I've rewritten it in a purely attributed form, while removing the direct factual statements for which attribution would imply false balance or otherwise undermine their validity. Please let me know what you think:

Poor record in war

Historians Philip Morgan and Bret Devereaux wrote that by losing in World War Two, fascism failed to meet its own standards for success.(Morgan, Devereaux) Devereaux described a general trend for fascist regimes to do poorly in war, despite military effectiveness being a central principle that fascism uses to justify itself.(Devereaux) He wrote that of the two unambiguously fascist historical regimes, both were destroyed in wars they started, with Nazi Germany losing its war "as thoroughly and completely as it is possible to lose".(Devereaux) Similarly, he described Fascist Italy as only achieving military successes in colonial wars that were won at great cost and with severe repercussions for Italy’s international standing.(Devereaux) Morgan wrote that when fascism "failed the test that it had set for itself" by being unable to win in WWII, this was a major factor in the collapse in support for the Italian regime.(Morgan a,b) Umberto Eco wrote that fascist rhetoric undermines its own war effort because enemies are described as both "too strong and too weak", leading to governments which are "condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy."(Eco)

This version removes pretty much everything that's not directly included in attributed arguments. The subheading remains as "Poor record in war" since it's a summary of what the criticism is. I'm not really clear on how you think Eco should be handled differently, but I tried a different summary.

Subsequently, I would also prefer to include the statement comparing non-democracies to democracies, which would probably be a separate paragraph. However, I would consider it to require being presented as factual (only two sources are included here, but they also refer to multiple others). Arguably, this part should be excluded since it doesn't refer to fascism specifically (except by implication, being included in non-democracies). I would argue that it's clearly relevant to the topic, but it can also be left out if necessary:

In general, non-democracies are less likely to win wars than democracies.(Choi, Reiter) This has been attributed to factors such as poor use of resources when compared to democracies, less effective cooperation with allies, and reduced initiative and inferior leadership in the military.(Choi, Reiter)

@Trakking: Those objections are about the merits of the criticism itself, rather than about how to reflect the sources. Since they aren't included in the sources, they aren't relevant to the article. That said, the sources do answer those arguments either explicitly or implicitly. For example: per the sources, the fact that they lost the war is relevant because they defined their ideology around their ability to succeed in war. Similarly, Devereaux goes into detail about the history of many different governments (a much deeper analysis than 0-1). The third point is addressed more obliquely, but I think the response would be that the final outcome is what matters, especially given that the advanced democracies were largely unprepared for the war when it began.
--Sunrise (talk) 20:12, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Sunrise: I think this text does a great job of addressing my concerns. Thanks for taking the time to work this out on Talk.

One more source you may want to look at for this would be Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century, chapter 5: "Hitler's New Order, 1938-45". From the conclusion:

National Socialism started out claiming to be creating a New Order in Europe, but as racial ideology prevailed over economic rationality, the extreme violence implicit in this project became clearer. 'Ginger-bread and whippings' was how Goebbels summed up their policy, but there was not enough of the former and too much of the latter. The 'Great Living Space (Grosslebensraum) of the European family of nations' promised life to the Germans, an uncertain and precarious existence to most Europeans and extermination to the Jews. 'If Europe can't exist without us,' wrote Goebbels in his pro-European phase, 'neither can we survive without Europe.' This turned out to be true. The Germans threw away their chance to dominate the continent after 1940 and their defeat led to their own catastrophe.

Generalrelative (talk) 20:26, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Per weight, articles should not provide opinions that have not received recognition in the literature. Without commentary by experts, readers cannot evaluate how plausible these arguments are.

Certainy a population of one (lost war) doesn't allow for statistical analysis. And fascists did not come to power by promising war.

Best to leave it out. TFD (talk) 22:46, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

@Generalrelative: thanks for the comments! I looked through the source you suggested. From my brief review, I didn't see anything in Chapter 5 that directly addressed effectiveness in war, but I found a section of Chapter 4 that works well for this (last paragraph of the "Fascist Capitalism" section). Following the same approach as above, it could perhaps be summarized as: Historian Mark Mazower wrote that while the Nazis focused extensively on military production, and fascist rhetoric emphasized efficiency and coordination in the economy, they were unable to succeed on these factors and the German war economy was ultimately outperformed by both the capitalists and the communists. I think this is particularly valuable since the other sources didn't focus on economics; I would probably insert it either before or after the second mention of Morgan in the main paragraph.

@TFD: those are true statements, but I'm not sure how they're relevant to the content, which is sourced to multiple experts. Eco might be an exception, but at minimum he is still a well-known commentator on fascism. In addition, the weight is already minimal given that it's only included in the Criticism section and is presented as attributed statements (if a "Criticism of Fascism" sub-article existed, that could perhaps be an argument to move it there, but summary style suggests the content should be built up here first, through additions like this one). I have also noted above that there is considerably more detail involved than simply analyzing a population of one, so perhaps the description of Devereaux could be expanded to make this clearer. I'm thinking of starting with Devereaux evaluated a series of fascist and near-fascist historical regimes... and/or adding When analyzing other regimes that have been considered fascist under certain definitions, such as the Ba'athist regimes of Syria and Iraq, he found that their effectiveness in war was also very poor.

Updated version including the changes described above

Poor record in war Historians Philip Morgan and Bret Devereaux wrote that by losing in World War Two, fascism failed to meet its own standards for success.(Morgan, Devereaux) Devereaux evaluated a series of fascist and near-fascist historical regimes, and described a general trend for them to do poorly in war, despite military effectiveness being a central principle that fascism uses to justify itself.(Devereaux) He wrote that of the two unambiguously fascist historical regimes, both were destroyed in wars they started, with Nazi Germany losing its war "as thoroughly and completely as it is possible to lose".(Devereaux) Similarly, he described Fascist Italy as only achieving military successes in colonial wars that were won at great cost and with severe repercussions for Italy’s international standing. When analyzing other regimes that have been considered fascist under various definitions, such as the Ba'athist regimes of Syria and Iraq, he found that their records in war were also very poor.(Devereaux) Morgan wrote that when fascism "failed the test that it had set for itself" by being unable to win in WWII, this was a major factor in the collapse in support for the Italian regime.(Morgan a,b) Historian Mark Mazower wrote that while the Nazis focused extensively on military production, and fascist rhetoric emphasized efficiency and coordination in the economy, they were unable to succeed on these factors and the German war economy was ultimately outperformed by both the capitalists and the communists.(Mazower) Umberto Eco wrote that fascist rhetoric undermines its own war effort because enemies are described as both "too strong and too weak", leading to governments which are "condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy."(Eco) In general, non-democracies are less likely to win wars than democracies.(Choi, Reiter) This has been attributed to factors such as poor use of resources when compared to democracies, less effective cooperation with allies, and reduced initiative and inferior leadership in the military.(Choi, Reiter)

--Sunrise (talk) 04:51, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

So it lost WW2, were they the only fascist nations? Slatersteven (talk) 10:31, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Does Devereaux use examples from outside WWII in their work? Simonm223 (talk) 14:11, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

The governments being analyzed are divided based on how broadly accepted the fascist classification is. He says that the governments which most everyone agrees on are Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany; while they were both destroyed in WWII, he discusses the failures and fall of each of them separately (as do most scholars, I think). He describes the next most ‘clearly fascist’ government as Spain under Franco, and describes the rest as being much more subject to debate, but summarizes them as e.g. the candidates for fascist or near-fascist regimes that have been militarily successful are few. A full list of the governments that he explicitly mentions are Portugal under Salazar, Argentina under Peron, Imperial Japan, Syria under Assad, Iraq under Hussein, and Russia under Putin. Sunrise (talk) 06:10, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I was kind of wondering if he would include Argentina either under Peron or under the Junta on that list. Simonm223 (talk) 13:33, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Weight says that articles should "fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources." Given that hundreds of thousands of books and articles have been written about fascism, that limits us to major views that are routinely mentioned in overviews of fascism.

Eco was not a fascism scholar and his "Ur-Fascism" has not gained any acceptance among fascism scholars. Bret Devereaux is also not a fascism expert and his not submitted his views to academic scrutiny.

Every major writer alive during fascism's zenith had something to say about it. We cannot mention them all, but can only pick what is significant according to reliable sources.

Incidentally, what is the evidence that "military effectiveness being a central principle that fascism uses to justify itself." Hitler ran on a campaign of "work, freedom and bread." Starting a world war wasn't one of his campaign promises. TFD (talk) 17:59, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

I am aware of how WP:WEIGHT works. :-) As I agreed above, one can make a weight argument that this should be spun off into a criticism article. If you insist (and others don't weigh in), that's the approach I'll take; the large subsections have a lot of specific details that could be spun off as well. That said, in this case I would put more emphasis on weight within the Criticism section, which is poorly developed (e.g. until my recent edits, the genocides were barely mentioned at all) and I would consider this to be an appropriate amount of weight relative to the total amount of criticism that should be but isn't (yet) included in our article.

Eco is at minimum a significant viewpoint; he is already cited in this article, and comprehensively so at Definitions of fascism. I would consider Devereaux to have expertise in the public communication of history, but the content would still stand if he was removed, and some of the information could also be sourced to others. Morgan, of course, is the author of a Routledge textbook on fascism. Certainly "every major writer alive during fascism's zenith" isn't the right comparison, since while WWII was still in progress they didn't have much of an established military record that could be discussed.

The centrality of military effectiveness (or at least the appearance of effectiveness) is currently only being presented as part of the attributed argument. On reflection, it will probably always be possible to choose a definition of fascism such that the statement doesn't apply. That said, Morgan discusses this extensively. As an example, from the conclusion: The Fascist regime, self-evidently, ‘failed’ against its own chosen measurement of ‘success’, which was war. Fascism’s immediate legacy was, then, military defeat and the foreign occupation of Italy, which was bound to discredit both the system of rule and the aggressive nationalism which Fascism embodied. Likewise there is the description from the above content that support for the Italian government had an important dependence on their ability to win the war. Another example is from Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism: Fascist regimes could not survive without the active acquisition of new territory...and they deliberately chose aggressive war to achieve it (which logically includes victory as a requirement).

While Hitler didn't promise to start a world war, he certainly planned for Germany to expand dramatically. His ideology is well-studied and encompasses a lot more than his specific campaign promises. Sunrise (talk) 06:10, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

You have not provided an WEIGHT based arguments. People do not have weight, opinions do, henve the reference to "all significant viewpoints" not "all significant commentators.

Eco's "Ur Fascism" article for exampled has received great attention in popular writing, although AFAIK, none in academic writing. But the opinions expresssed in that article do not mention fascism and war.

Also, while Morgan wrote a chapter about Fascism's failure in war, you need to establishe the prominence of his observation in reliable sources. Do brief articles about fascism routinely mention it?

Also, Morgan was writing about Fascism in Italy. It's OR to apply it to anything else. And if his opinions are mentioned, you need to mention him.

Anyway, the best approach to ensuring weight is to identify the main literature and summarize what they say. We should not include things just because we find them interesting. It would leave an incorrect impression on readers on how fascism is perceived by experts. TFD (talk) 19:10, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I have provided a weight-based argument in the last sentence of the first paragraph of my previous response. I have also observed that the argument is discussed in multiple sources, which is inherently a weight-based argument that the cumulative weight of these sources is sufficient for inclusion in the article. (Also, people have weight in the sense that weight originates from sources, and if the author is an expert that will greatly increase the weight of the source.) Furthermore, I will also restate that a lot of the content could be rewritten to a form that presents facts rather than opinions, in which case arguments about opinions wouldn't apply even though the content would technically have even more weight rather than less.

With regards to Eco, Ur-Fascism is cited 627 times in Google Scholar. Looking within the citing articles provides multiple cases where other scholars use him as an authoritative source on fascism: [1] [2] [3] [4] etc. Your additional claim that his article do[es] not mention fascism and war is incorrect, and the relevant section is quoted in the above content.

In response to your other new objection: part of the content describing Morgan already makes it clear that it refers to Italy. The other part cited to Morgan is cited to another source as well, but his position in that sentence could be replaced by a different source; alternatively, please feel free to propose a version that you think improves the attribution. I have also just provided another source (one that has its own WP article) on a very similar point that clearly discusses fascism in general.

As I said, I will acknowledge that your weight argument can be supported as well, so I will plan to spin this off into a subarticle instead as I mentioned above. Sunrise (talk) 12:59, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

OK, I've now created the new Criticism of fascism article, as per my last comment. I also added quite a bit of additional content (and I'm sure even more could be added), so please feel free to review and make further edits. Corresponding edits to the main article are in progress. Sunrise (talk) 11:15, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

You did not have consensus for this. Slatersteven (talk) 11:37, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm confused, but current discussion is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Criticism of fascism. Sunrise (talk) 11:58, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Well I could be wrong, but I do not think anyone said this was a good idea for you to make this article. Slatersteven (talk) 12:26, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I might be misunderstanding you? But generally speaking, editors do not require permission to edit, and especially not for something that was proposed on talk with no objection... Sunrise (talk) 14:47, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

@Slatersteven and Trakking: I have no objection to retaining the status quo pending discussion, of course. However, please remember that in general, "no consensus" is not a valid reason to revert. I would appreciate knowing any specific objections you might have so they can be addressed.
With regards to Trakking's edit summary: to be clear, the "additions" are a single sentence listing the sections of the new Criticism article, and the "major removals" are a summarization of the existing content to distill out the central points, with additional details being moved to the subarticle. This is a normal procedure in accordance with WP:Summary style. I also did a cleanup at the same time, and it turns out that a lot of the content (in the status quo version) could be shortened or removed since it's either not criticism, extraneous detail, or can be written in many fewer words.
I appreciate both of your edits on the Criticism article. I will take a closer look later, but as some preliminary thoughts: @Slatersteven, the paragraphs that you removed are directly based on the long-standing content in the main article. I could see it being argued either way, but if you want to object to their categorization as "Criticism of fascism", you should probably make that argument here instead. @Trakking, you've made suggestions for content a couple times now but without actually providing sources. Could you please provide suggestions for what sources you're recommending the content could be based on? Sunrise (talk) 14:47, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

2024-11 gallery

A potential gallery for the FAQ: Nazis sitting on the far right of the German parliament circa 1930

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Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 20:51, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Too bad ideology isn't determined by seating arrangements. Liberty5000 (talk) 13:51, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Please remember WP:NOTFORUM. Simonm223 (talk) 13:53, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

I do realize Wikipedia is not a forum. But I don't see the point in adding these images. It seems like he is just trying to deceive people. Liberty5000 (talk) 23:46, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't see any indication of deception here. Simonm223 (talk) 18:28, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

While ideology is not determined by seating arrangement, seating arrangement is determined by ideologies in European parliaments. Parties chose among themselves where to sit and that means they sit closest to the other parties they are most likely to cooperate with. Generally but not always this will reflect their relative position in the political spectrum.

This 1924 plan of the Baden-Wurttemburg legislature for example shows the parties sitting from left to right: Communist, Social Democratic, liberal, Nazi affiliate, national liberal, Christian Democratic and conservative.[5] I saw a 1930s plan of the Reichstag that had the Nazi grouping seated inside the Conservative grouping.

I don't see though how the picture helps and it's not clear who is a Nazi in the photo. TFD (talk) 22:26, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

They're the ones on the right. Kidding. I agree, I don't see any swastikas or any other nazi symbols, and the image quality makes it more or less impossible to identify individuals. El Beeblerino ^{if you're not into the whole brevity thing} 00:21, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

The image quality suffice to see that a slice of lawmakers at the far right wear gray suits unlike most of the other lawmakers who wear black suits. It is because those lawmakers are Nazis wearing brown suits that is rendered gray by monochrome photography. See this colour but not libre image at Getty https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/nazi-party-deputies-in-the-reichstag-berlin-germany-1933-news-photo/184253717 Whether or not a label such «Nazis wearing brown suits (rendered gray by monochrome photography) sitting on the far right of the German parliament circa 1930» qualify the gallery for the FAQ is up to debate. If nobody support my proposal then it will end in the archive, that is. Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 18:05, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

«Too bad ideology isn't determined by seating arrangements.» => This is unrelated to the comment you are replying to. I guess that you misclicked or misunderstood. While ideology isn't determined by seating arrangements, in western countries political alignment is determined by seating arrangements: the left–right political spectrum of western countries was defined by seating arrangements of French politicians during the French Revolution of 1789-1799 and is followed in most of parliaments, including the German parliament during Weimar and BRD. Fascism being far-right is the point of the FAQ that I mentioned at the beginning of my first comment Talk:Fascism/FAQ. Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 18:05, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Seat plan after the 1930 election: https://www.reichstagsprotokolle.de/en_Blatt4_h1_bsb00000005_00650.html Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 21:19, 10 February 2025 (UTC)