Now fascist parties appear in eastern Europe. And there is a Romanian fascist party which is the most interesting. Codrianeau. Oh I don't know, we should write on the board Codreanu somehow. Corneliu Codreanu. Most picture is [INAUDIBLE]. The movement had done several different names, the Iron Guard. Now on these fascist movements had a great deal in common. And yet, they also had their independent characters. What they had in common was an explicit repudiation of liberalism, parliamentary democracy. All of them had the charismatic leaders that was a precondition to be a good fascist. A repudiation of modernity, repudiation of what is called the emancipatory trends, introduced by the French Revolution. Dale Palmer. That is really the definition of fascism, and that is why I, contrary to many of my friends, believe that really we can talk about fascism only in the interim war period, and there are no fascist parties today. That is, I resist the notion that everything written online is fascist. There are many reasons to dislike movements and people, and yet we make distinctions among them for. >> Did I get it right? >> Indeed. Now Romanian Fascism. The particular character is that the, and of course, I want to say that the fascist movements also included anti-semitism, but of course that is not true. Because the original fascist movement, really where the fascists got their name, is of course Italy, which was remarkably non-anti-semitic. Anti-semitism. On the other hand, it's quite clear to see why fascism and anti-semitism go so well together. That is, Jews everywhere, likely or wrongly are associated with modernity. A modern world. And there are so many people who don't like our modern world for one reason or another. And the Jews can be blamed. >> I wanna ask about religion. >> Yes. >> The Romanians are Roman Catholic? >> No, no. The Romanians are Greek Orthodox. >> And the Hungarians are Catholic? >> Well, 70% were Catholics and 30% were Protestant. But the interesting thing in the Hungarian case, is that the Protestants stood for Hungarian nationalism more than Catholics because Catholicism was associated Catholic Vienna, Catholic Austria. And any Hungarian nationalism, which was in opposition to Austria, therefore, was led more often than not by Protestants. Today, the Hungarian seed, the Protestants, the Protestant churches are much more anti-semitic than the Catholic. That is, Protestantism is more associated with Hungarian nationalism than Catholicism. But the Romanian fascism is really quite picturesque. They associated themselves with the Romanian peasantry. The peasantry which represents the nation. Now, by and large, their followers actually came not from the peasantry, but from the unemployed intelligentsia and unemployed middle classes. >> Yeah. >> Fascism was particularly strong in universities. This is again something we should emphasize again and again. That we like to think of university youth as the bastions of laughter. This has not always been so. In the interwar period, university students represented right-wing. Now, look at the Romanian political scene in the interwar period. What you have is a corrupt, inefficient state, and the opposition to that inefficient, corrupt state comes from the right. In this respect, this is also true in Hungary and then to a great extent also true in Poland, and the reason for that is because the left is associated with the Soviet Union, and the hostility to the Soviet Union, fear of the Soviet Union and Bolshevism and socialism is really discredited. So on the one hand, to the extent there is a genuine movement which wants to overthrow a socially conservative regime, and wants to introduce what would seem to us as progressive changes, such as land reform is more likely to come from the extreme right. >> From the Reich. >> The trouble is that the extreme right also wants to kill Jews. >> [LAUGH] >> So you were put in a difficult position if you were a Hungarian, or a Romanian voter in the 1930s. Would you vote for the nice aristocrats, who want to retain their lands forever and ever? And they sure have a lot of land. Or would you vote for the fascists who really genuinely want to do away with this outdated social? But they are not [FOREIGN]. I don't know how we say it in English. [FOREIGN]. Well, not people that you would entertain in the summer. Not nice people. >> You wouldn't take them to dinner. >> You would not want to have coffee with them. Not nice people. [LAUGH] So here we are in Romania where the strongest are position coming from this very picturesque fascist movement, and when I say picturesque, I mean these people, the Romanian fascists in the neck carry a little pocket of Romanian soil. We are the land, and they perceive that the Jews stand between us and God. This is a very religious movement. Of all fascist movements, the fascism actually, in quite a few places, went very well in finding alliance with religion. But nowhere went this further than in the case of Romania. The country I know has religious visions. Angels speak to him, how you have to kill the Jews. And indeed, I mean these people, unlike fascists elsewhere, they really talk about killing Jews. We want to get rid of Jews. But, that's one thing to get rid of Jews. But, the big question in the 1930s in Germany, how do we get rid of Jews? Well, for Codreanu, this is very simple, we'll massacre them. Now, they are also enemies of the state. And so periodically, Codreanu and his followers get arrested, because the head of the state, King Carol, sees himself something of a duchard. You remember duchard, otherwise we don't remember duchard. The [FOREIGN] is the Romanian word. [FOREIGN] is the German word. I don't know what is the English word. Well the leader, I mean the. And so, periodically gets arrested. Codreanu gets arrested because he wants movers for the state. They do very well in elections, even though they don't believe in elections. That is the Romanian fascist Codreanu's follower, the Iron Guard. Fascism does not accept parliamentary democracy. On the other hand, when they run in elections, they do very well. And the threat to the Romanian state and consequently they get arrested. And at one point, Codreanu and his followers, while attempting to escape, they are killed. This is however not the end of the Romanian fascist movement. The fascist movement survives with Codreanu as the martyr.
