Introduction
A fundamental challenge for historians examining the Britain of the 1930s is whether or how to present an even-handed, objective or neutral analysis of fascism. Although in the 1920s and 30s the term could be and was used in polite society and government circles, indicating that it was uncontroversial for many[1], by the outbreak of war when hundreds of fascists were interned this was no longer the case. Baker, in his 1996 study of the ‘extreme anti-semite’ A.K.Chesterton (second cousin of G.K. and Cecil) suggests that ‘the sheer horror of … the Holocaust … still makes it difficult for historians to deal objectively with the great taboo subjects of the twentieth century, fascism and political anti-Semitism’. He quotes the Italian historian, Benedetto Croce, writing in 1946: ‘I have not written it [a history of Italian fascism], nor shall I write it, because I hate Fascism so much that I forbid myself even to attempt to think about its history’. Even Chesterton, who put so much effort into promoting it and could proudly call himself a fascist in the 1930s, could claim by 1947 ‘it is impossible even to mention the word without invoking … what its deadliest enemies intended people to believe it to have meant’ rather than ‘what its adherents meant when they used it’.[2] …
[1] Maguire in Copsey and Renton, 2005, pp. 18-19.
[2] Baker, 1996, p. vii, 1, 189.
Chapter3 [8100 words]
Britain in the 1930s 