Madeleine Albright’s Warnings on Fascism

In her new book Fascism: A Warning, Madeleine Albright uses historical portraits to examine Fascism, how a society allows it, the personality type that embodies it, and the conditions under which it succeeds.  In the first dozen pages, she quickly explores the defining factors of Fascism in a conversation she shares with her Georgetown grad students. Eventually she determines, “To my mind, a Fascist is someone who identifies strongly with and claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use whatever means are necessary –including violence– to achieve his or her goals.  In that conception, a Fascist will likely be a tyrant, but a tyrant need not be a fascist“ (11). We must understand this definition, to work at refining it and knowing it deeply, for as she warns, “We need to do a better job of describing the reality we confront…[because] Fascism rarely makes a dramatic entrance.”

By scrutinizing Fascist leaders from the previous century and into the 2000s, the take-aways Albright reveals are enormous and disturbing, but these few stand out.

1. Fascism is a slope more slippery than we think, beginning with “seemingly minor characters–Mussolini in a crowded cellar, [or] Hitler on a street corner…” (229). But as specific conditions foment, the Fascist is prepared to take advantage, to act when the time is right.  Beginning with small, seemingly reasonable and explainable shifts in society and policy, a Fascist slowly takes hold. On page 230, Albright quotes a “well-educated but not politically minded German” in Hitler’s Germany explaining that “to live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it…each step was so small. So inconsequential…one no more saw it developing from day to day then a farmer in his field sees the corn growing…” (230).  

2. And when it begins to take hold at home, it becomes easier to take hold abroad.  One of Albright’s recurring points is that Fascism in a leading country enables and emboldens others.  “The herd mentality is powerful in international affairs. Leaders around the globe observe, learn from, and mimic one another.  They see where their peers are heading, what they can get away with, and how they can augment and perpetuate their power” (246).  So when one of the most powerful nation’s leader ignores the rights of minorities, consolidates power for his own interests, or makes comments condoning violence against his political enemies, it empowers and enables other world leaders to behave the same way.  

3. Despite our own faults, we must speak out.  As a world leader, America must speak out against Fascism.  One could argue we have no right, being guilty of so much ourselves, but as Albright writes, “Being accused of having double standards is preferable to being convicted–due to our own refusal to act– of honoring no standards at all” (214).  During periods of extreme myopic nationalism, we risk more than we can ever pretend to accrue, and we must not withdraw into ourselves. We must not be silent. “If every nation is focused entirely on gaining an edge over every other, there can be no trust, no special relationships, no reward for helpfulness, and no penalty for cynicism–because cynicism is all we promise and all we expect” (218).  Without international diplomacy, without friendships between countries, we are left with a bleak dog-eat-dog world, the cynicism of which would make improvement seem impossible.

4. We should not oversimplify the situation or the solutions.  “We must remember that the nerve-shattering forces at work in the United States and the world today were hardly set in motion by one man” (237).  The rise of Fascism is many-faceted, and overcoming it will not be the result of facile solutions. After all, it’s a fairly heedless population that serves to maintain Fascism in the first place, among those who might dismiss others with the indifferent slogan “me ne frego.”  

Albright concludes her book with poignant and evocative questions to assist in kick starting a critical thinking process.  She concludes with “For those who cherish freedom, the answers will provide grounds for reassurance, or a warning we dare not ignore”  (254). Those who cherish freedom must begin with thinking, with caring.

Albright, Madeleine.  Fascism: A Warning.  New York: Harper Collins. 2018.