Racism as the Structural Core of Fascist Power
Fascism’s relationship with racism was neither incidental nor peripheral; rather, racism functioned as a foundational mechanism through which fascist regimes defined national identity, mobilized mass support, and justified unprecedented forms of state violence. At its core, fascism rejected liberal and civic understandings of the nation, replacing them with an organic, quasi‑biological conception of national belonging. This shift allowed fascist leaders to claim that the nation was not a political community bound by shared laws or institutions, but a living body whose purity and vitality depended on the exclusion of those deemed racially alien. In this framework, racism became a political technology: a way to draw boundaries around who counted as part of the national community and who could be stripped of rights, expelled, or eliminated. The centrality of racism is most evident in Nazi Germany, where the regime’s ideological foundation rested on the belief that the so‑called Aryan race represented the pinnacle of human development, while Jews, Romani people, Slavs, and others were portrayed as existential threats. Yet even in Italy, where early fascism emphasized cultural nationalism rather than biological racism, the regime eventually adopted explicit racial laws and aligned itself with Nazi racial doctrine. This evolution demonstrates that racism was not simply a German aberration but a flexible tool that fascist movements adapted to their political needs.
The political utility of racism for fascist regimes lay in its capacity to create internal enemies whose supposed threat could unify the majority population. By identifying minorities as the source of economic instability, cultural change, or national decline, fascist leaders redirected public frustration away from structural problems and toward vulnerable groups. This scapegoating process was not spontaneous; it was cultivated through a sophisticated propaganda apparatus that saturated public life with dehumanizing images and narratives. Newspapers, radio broadcasts, films, and school curricula portrayed targeted groups as conspiratorial, parasitic, or biologically dangerous. These representations did more than reflect prejudice—they actively reshaped public perception, making discriminatory policies appear not only acceptable but necessary. As fascist regimes intensified their rhetoric, the public became increasingly desensitized to violence, enabling the state to escalate from social exclusion to physical annihilation. The Holocaust represents the most extreme manifestation of this logic, but it was rooted in broader patterns of racialized governance that characterized fascist movements across Europe.
Racism also played a crucial role in the legal and bureaucratic transformation of fascist states. Once racial categories were embedded in law, the state gained expansive power to regulate the lives of those it deemed undesirable. In Germany, the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 stripped Jews of citizenship, prohibited intermarriage, and laid the groundwork for their social and economic exclusion. These laws were not merely symbolic; they restructured society by redefining who counted as a full member of the nation. Similar developments occurred in Fascist Italy with the 1938 racial laws, which barred Jews from public education, government employment, and military service. The legal codification of racism allowed fascist regimes to expand their authority under the guise of protecting national purity. Bureaucrats, police officers, teachers, and employers became agents of racial policy, demonstrating how racism permeated everyday life and transformed ordinary institutions into instruments of authoritarian control.
Beyond its domestic functions, racism also shaped fascist foreign policy. Fascist regimes framed territorial expansion as a racial imperative, claiming that superior races were entitled to dominate or displace inferior ones. Nazi Germany’s pursuit of Lebensraum in Eastern Europe exemplifies this logic, as the regime justified conquest and mass murder by portraying Slavic populations as racially inferior obstacles to German destiny. Italian Fascism similarly invoked racial arguments to justify its colonial ambitions in Africa, depicting Ethiopians and other colonized peoples as backward populations in need of domination. These imperial projects reveal that fascist racism was not confined to internal enemies but extended outward, shaping global hierarchies and legitimizing violence on an international scale. In this sense, fascist racism intersected with older traditions of European imperialism, drawing on colonial ideologies while intensifying them through the totalizing ambitions of the fascist state.
The structural role of racism in fascism becomes even clearer when examining how it functioned to suppress dissent and consolidate authoritarian power. By defining political opponents as racial enemies, fascist regimes blurred the line between political conflict and biological threat. Communists, socialists, liberals, and other dissidents were often portrayed not merely as ideological adversaries but as agents of racial contamination or conspirators aligned with racialized enemies. This framing allowed fascist leaders to justify the elimination of political pluralism under the pretext of national defense. Racism thus served as a mechanism for transforming political repression into a moral imperative, enabling the state to present its actions as necessary for the survival of the nation. The result was a political environment in which dissent became synonymous with treason, and violence became a legitimate tool of governance.
Ultimately, racism was indispensable to the fascist project because it provided a coherent narrative that linked the regime’s ideological goals with its practical methods of rule. It offered a way to define the nation, mobilize the population, restructure society, justify expansion, and eliminate opposition. The genocidal violence of the Holocaust represents the most extreme outcome of this logic, but it was rooted in broader patterns of racial exclusion and authoritarianism that characterized fascist movements across Europe. Understanding how fascism worked with racism is therefore essential not only for interpreting the past but also for recognizing how similar dynamics can emerge in contemporary political contexts. When political actors invoke racialized narratives to define national identity, blame minorities for social problems, or portray dissent as a threat to national survival, they draw on the same ideological tools that enabled fascist regimes to rise. The history of fascism thus serves as a warning about the dangers of racialized politics and the ease with which democratic institutions can be undermined when racism becomes a central organizing principle of public life.
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