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supposing that a fascist is one who is on the side of the Führer orthe Duce. Dollfuss was a fascist and so was Schuschnigg, but neitherof them was noticeably on the side of Hitler and one was assassinatedand the other seized and imprisoned by Hitler. Metaxas in Greecewas a fascist, but he was far from being a champion of his warlikeneighbor who finally drove him from his fascist dictatorship andhis country.There are far too many misconceptions of the meaning of thisexplosive word. Many suppose that fascism is just a trade name forthe modern, streamlined dictatorship. Hence they see little differencebetween the fascist Hitler and the communist Stalin. Both aredictators. They preside, however, over very different systems ofsociety. They are despots ruling over totalitarian states, but thesocial structure of Russia is no more like the social structure ofGermany and Italy than the State of Stalin resembles the State ofNicholas II.Because our attention is fixed upon the element of dictatorship—which is just one ingredient of that order—we dismiss the wholething as merely a form of gangsterism. Hence we hear such looseand superheated definitions as this: that it is a "revolt againstWestern culture" or "an attack upon our civilization." It is, alas,not a revolt against Western culture but a fruit—bitter and poisonous—ofthat culture.We get far too much of our information about fascism from thedaily reports of its dramatics—its marching black or brown shirts,its saluting legions, its posturing leaders, its violent techniques forobtaining power, its persecution of Jews, its suppression of freespeech, and, finally, its inevitable adventures in the dark field ofimperialism. These are the products of regimes that are built onviolence; and violence is the essential weapon of every kind of dictatorshipwhether it be the dictatorship of the royal Louis XIV orthe proletarian Joseph Stalin. It is violence and force that createthe incidents and episodes that make the material of news. Thereare other weapons and instruments of policy in the arsenal of thefascist besides the castor-oil bottle, the torch, and the sword. Whatwe must seek are those other instruments which distinguish thefascist dictatorship from all other dictatorships. What we must2