Be it thru civil uprising or what not?
Spain?
Or a bunch of South American dictatorships.
For Spain’s case, I think Fascism just got old and died.
Wasn’t there an attempt at a coup to re-establish fascism not long after Franco died, which the king managed to quash by going on TV and addressing the armed forces directly?
That's the official version. The truth remains to be known since any government has had the guts to disclosure the secret files from that historic period.
An attempted military uprising. Some say it was a conspiracy of the king to gain popularity because he was put on the throne by Franco.
Nah the ETA assassinated the guy Franco had groomed as heir for decades, and then the steam just kinda fizzled out after Franco died.
Authoritarian regimes are usually very vulnerable to assassinations, since they rely on powerful figureheads. These are not as easily replaceable as normal government leaders in a republic.
The restoration of the monarchy had been a law long, long before the guy got killed
Juan Carlos was already a prince living in Spain as the heir of Franco, decades before the prime minister got killed.
So no. Definitely Carrero wasn't "groomed" as successor. Juan Carlos i was the one groomed for succession.
Yes. The first Spanish Astronaut.
Werner von Braun must be spinning in his grave, I'll bet it was his dream to be the first fascist in space.
It looks like that’s what the US is mostly hoping for.
Yeah, South America basically had to overthrow all the governments that America installed and a lot of countries there are recovering extremely well.
Portugal.
portugal was at war for almost 15 years when the revolution happened
The prompt was "without an invasion from another country."
It wasn't the war that ended the dictatorship. It was the portuguese military that got tired of being sent there did.
What happened? Send tips to US.
Would be impossible in the US. It is known as the revolution without shots being fired. Was probably not that simple but either way, only 6 people died and 45 were injured according to Wikipedia. We are also lazy so we did it in a single day.
Like imagine when republicans stormed the capitol a few years ago. Now imagine if that had just worked. That's what happened basically
No imagining necessary, January 6th did (eventually) work.
Work how? Some randos yelled slogans at the camera.
source: self-appointed PhD in political science, imaginary contributor to the New Yorker.
We are also lazy so we did it in a single day.
And because of that laziness we did not finish the revolution and left way too many fascist fucks free, and now their spawnlings are trying to get power back.
The dude asked for some tips to the US? Here's one: finish them fucking off. Don't go half ass on it like you did after the Civil War.
Well, there is a thing about Portugal political systems. They aren't really overthrown, they tend to collapse. Obstinate supporters of a regimen, become enthusiastic proposers of its replacement (post facto) in the following week.
At least in the XXth century.
To sum it up very, very simply:
The dictator (António de Oliveira Salazar) that kept a stronghold over the country fell from a chair and suffered a stroke in 1969, the President (Américo Thomaz, who was constitutionally the one with absolute power) nominated a successor (Marcello Caetano). Salazar then woke up from his coma and spent the rest of his days "ruling in privacy" (believing he still was in charge, everyone surrounding him played along and pretended) until he died the next year.
However, Thomaz did not allow Caetano to hold the absolute power Salazar did, weakening the regime. Along with that, they clashed because Caetano was (arguably) more liberal than him and Salazar and attempted reforms. Add to this an increasingly unpopular war in Africa to hold onto the colonies, and eventually four years later the regime was overthrown in 25/04/1974 by the military, with popular support.
(Obviously the whole thing would require a much more lengthy explanation and what happened in the two years after before democracy was consolidated is a very controversial period, therefore I will not address it).
The dude just died (extra steps were involved)
It's a bit difficult to re-create, because it relied on optimal conditions:
I highly highly recommend reading the book 'Portugal: The Impossible Revolution.' It was written in real time by an Irish exchange student who was in Portugal as the fascist regime fell, and it's the best primary source I've found in English about what that chaotic time in Portuguese history was like.
Yep as mentioned Spain and Portugal and in a way Taiwan , South Corea and Singapore.
When was Singapore fascist? It was extremely authoritarian in 1960s due to operation coldstore but it was never fascist.
I said “ in a way”. It depends a lot on how you define fascism , because except no other country that arguably had a fascist regime never used that term when referring to itself. If we say that fascism is an an authoritarian state , with a combination of significant army implication, special policing forces, no parties and parliament or only nominal ones, no/ or sham elections, no/ very little human rights, no habeas corpus, anti communistic/ anti left, very patriotic on the verge of absurdism, and economy based on crony capitalism you can add many other regimes to the mix , with the exception of the self declared socialist or communist. If to the above mix you add extreme institutional racism , u get nazism. Based on the above you can add to the list Greece under military dictatorship, Chile , Argentina but there was enough foreign pressure to consider their transition to democracy as an internal process.
To answer this question, it may be helpful to define fascism.
Unfortunately, there's no concrete definition that I've been able to find. Umberto Eco write a very influential essay titled Ur-Fascism, where he describes 14 qualities that fascist regimes often have. Most of these are aimed at reducing citizens' ability to question the regime and directing their discontent towards "the enemy" (which is often minorities or another nation).
I recommend looking up the essay - it's fascinating, freely available online, and also Eco grew up under Italian fascism.
People in here have such a broad interpretation of what fascism means
There are four competing definitions of fascism.
There is Musolini's doctrine of fascism which is so narrow, that he banned it eight years after writing because by then his government no longer fit the definition.
There is Umberto Eco's Ur-fascism which is so vague that anything could fit it.
There is Gentile's definition that is somewhere in the middle but includes all totalitarian nations.
There is Ben-Giat who considers fascism as a process of nostalgic totalitarian revolution instead of a coherent ideology.
But most people use the term for 'authoritarianism i don't like'
I dont think there is a truly universal definition. Because every country has their own version of fascisme that is different from others. I think in general it is ultra nationalist militant authoritian populisme. But nationalisme and populisme are different everywhere.
Roger Griffin's definition of Fascism: "Fascism is a political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultra-nationalist."
Ryan Chapman created a punchier definition: "We think with the blood of our nation."
My Mom once sent me to my room for something that wasn't even my fault. Haven't talked to that fascist since.
Welcome to Reddit
And they love talking about it like it makes them look smart.
Taiwan. Just transitioned to democracy, that's what the guy chose.
That's vastly over simplified. The UK and US were involved with Taiwan during the civil war and have continued to be allies over the years. The "choice" to transition had some heavy thumbs on the scale.
i feel like the US pumping money into taiwan both extended the life of the dictatorship and contributed to its downfall
Yes. Haitian revolution
Well, you could make the argument that that's what happened to mussolini.
Most dictators tend to exhibit many fascism symptoms, and their regimes usually end up defeated internally, although in many cases the 'God Emperor' dies first. Franco in Spain kinda engineered a return to the monarchy; Pinochet in Chile lost an election and sorta got out of the way, Argentina's dictatorship ended similarly.
A bunch of former soviet republics fell to internal revolution, not sure which ones would be considered fascist at the time; Egypt and Tunisia had regime changes recently too.
In modern times (probably ancient ones too) there's always external pressure, both helping a regime and trying to depose it, it's almost never pure.
Moseley tried to do fascism in the UK and got pretty soundly defeated.
South Africa
Isn't Romania a good example. One day Ceausescu was a fascist dictator, the next day, his people put him on trial and killed him.
And his wife! On Christmas Day no less. Firing squad.
I’m not too certain on the specifics of the ideology of the government of Portugal at the time but their own military got sick of the shit and overthrew the government and succeeded in a bloodless revolution. Pretty wild stuff.
Italy technically ousted fascism itself and signed an armistice with the allies.
The invasion was necessary to get rid of germany and their collaborationists. But it was more of a foreign rule at that point.
Italy technically ousted fascism itself and signed an armistice with the allies.
Only after crushing defeats in Africa and the loss of Sicily, though. Mussolini wouldn’t have fallen when he did without Operation Husky.
It get defeated by never being allowed to have control in the first place.
People forget Fascists tried to take over France and Britain and the US in the 1930s and were defeated well before they gained politcla power. In the US though they were allowed to retain their commercial power.
Portugal is a good exemple. Check out the 1974 revolution
It depends on what fascism actually is. If we count Francoist Spain and Estado Novo in Portugal, then yes. The Carnation Revolution ended fascism in Portugal and Francoist Spain transitioned to democracy under King Juan Carlos I.
There are plenty.
Spain just got tired of it when Franco died. His successor who was expected to be same old fascist wasn't that and even though he didn't really have pressure to put up democratic reforms he went with it anyway.
Chile used the constitution introduced by Pinochet's junta itself. It required a referandum on presidential candidate the junta puts forward, although plenty of media supression 56% "no" vote came from referandum which allowed a democratic election.
Greece and Argentina had fascist junta regime who claimed only they can kick another country out from a certain territory. Both lost support when they got their ass whooped.
I would suggest Mussolini was defeated from within.
In Portugal, the military quietly deposed the Salazar dictatorship with minimal violence as the citizens handed them carnations.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnation_Revolution
The Baltics won their independence from the Soviet Union (not necessarily fascist, but authoritarian) through the singing revolution:
Not quite fascist, but Czechoslovakia was run by an autocratic one-party communist government until the "velvet revolution", which was entirely peaceful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution
Spain and Taiwan come to mind
This isn't exactly the same, but there's a case for the pre-emptive internal defeat of fascism. Fascism has never taken over in a country with substantial provincial or state-level governments, only unitary countries. This gives me hope.
What does fascism mean? It’s defined very loosely and throw around sometimes but it’s important to remember that the concept of fascism is very new relatively speaking. It’s less than a century old. As for do dictators or autocratic rulers get deposed internally? Yes quite often actually. History is littered with examples of autocracies being topped internally.
I think that you need to keep one thing in mind: history is always changing and evolving. Just because something has never happened specifically one way doesn’t mean such a thing will never happen. For a long time no one in Europe had “ever” sailed to the Americas or know it existed. There had “never” been anything other than monarchies for a long time or were quite rare.
So never bet against history surprising you.
France, the popular front. A general strike of mass protests and labor actions (I think electrical workers cut the power to Paris) stopped a power grab attempt by fascists and ended up leading to the election of a center-left government for a brief period of optimism in a dark time.
The same time was the Spanish civil war where popular mobilizations and a regional revolution kept the Franco from an easy victory until the Spanish CP redirected efforts towards USSR priorities and attacked or disarmed worker communes and left-wing Marxist and anarchist militias.
More recently, Mubarak (authoritarian but not fascist) and the power grab by the South Korean president were also stopped by mass protests/general strikes.
The key to stopping fascism imo is mobilizing actual democratic power before they are able to firmly establish state and repressive power.
Even WW2 didn’t really get rid of fascism, it just sort of absorbed fascism and contained it in acceptable liberal institutional forms while author using the specific ideology. The Italian fascist movemebt continued, elite but not high-profile fascists were put back in power in Germany while their symbols and some language became out of bounds.
Here is the blueprint for doing so:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/From_Dictatorship_to_Democracy_%282003%29.pdf
Ironically there was in Germany during the inter war period in 1920. Although whether the kapp putsch was fully fascist is debating since they only held power for 5 days so it’s hard to fully define if they were fascist or “just” authoritarian. They were defeated by a national strike.
Couldn’t you say that American slavery was fascist? The term didn’t exist then but I think you could apply it today. Anyways that’s an example. Civil rights movement too.
Fascism always inevitably falls. It’s a cannibalistic ideology that slowly whittles down the privileged class until they collapse from internal pressures or turn outward and exhaust themselves in war.
Plenty of fascist states have fallen without external war.
If you look throughout human history, all fascism eventually falls. It isn't sustainable. Fuck with the people enough and they're going to overthrow you
Turkey soon
Spain, Portugal, Taiwan come to mind
A ton of people in these comments are just blindly calling any right-wing authoritarian government "fascist." Fascism isn't authoritarian, it's totalitarian. Only a very tiny number of states have ever experienced it, under the actual name fascism or otherwise.
It's only fascism if it involves a tripartite compact between labour, capital and the state. Otherwise it's just sparkling authoritarianism.
If you're asking if it's possible to turn back from the direction they're headed, none of the examples listed in this thread had anywhere near the station America holds on the global stage. This is all unprecedented in so many ways, there's literally no way to know how it'll shake out if at all. There's still power in the people, but the people are also stupid on an unprecedented level thanks to manipulation from social media. And it isn't getting any better. I think a lot of people realize how bad social media can be for anyone, but youths growing up with it is a problem where we haven't even seen the effects realized yet. And absolutely nobody with any power is talking about regulating it because they're benefiting from it.
Portugal
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJYrMReIL4e/?igsh=MWthdHQ2bWkwM3k4Ng==
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DIENKZHoD2L/?igsh=MWkyc3MxZGx2ajZ0aw==
Feel free to follow eother account. I try to post daily on what to do.
Right now its to spam the vote.gov link so we can get more people registered than the idiot side 🙄
Portugal comes to mind. Only 6 people died, and only 45 were injured.
Portugal
South Korea? Im not sure if it counted as fascist
I think it's meaningful to distinguish dictatorships that are "just" authoritarian from another kind of regime.
When you have South American dictatorships from the Cold War, the point is mostly just power; there is little in the way of an overarching ideology that the regime is tasked with implementing. If you question their rule things get really bad for you, but those who keep their head down mostly survive. This is one end of a continuum.
Then towards the other end you have the regimes that do have an overarching ideology - Nazism, Communism, MAGAism. These are about reorganizing society to favor the in-group ("Aryans", the "proletariat", the "deplorables") and crush the outgroups (pretty much everyone else). You don't need to do anything to be targeted by these folks, they hate you for who you are.
Nazism ended with foreign invasion and war. Communism got marginally more tolerable when Stalin died and later collapsed under its own weight after failing to keep up in the arms race.
Let's see what happens to MAGAism.
Portugal overthrew their own fascist dictatorship in 1974. It was a military coup, but with overwhelming support from the populace.
Portugal
PORTUGAL!!! 🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹
Portugal and Spain come to mind. There were a number of military dictatorships in South America that were perhaps borderline fascist, Argentina and Chile being the most prominent, but also Bolivia and Brazil as well.
Yes, Portugal is one example where the people overthrew their fascist dictator, it happened during the "Cravos" revolution
Zeon was defeated by internal forces.
I have scrolled a bit but I believe Portugal managed this too.
I wonder why you're asking that right now
In most recent news, take a look into what Romania recently accomplished by major protest. There are pics available on lots of sites. The pushback was enormous.
If you look at nations like they're organisms, fascism is kind of like an Immunoresponse to whatever the current economic paradigm is, usually marked by inequality. The fascist promise of a better world brings them to the fore
Similar to how antibodies are released into the bloodstream and bind to harmful pathogens which are then marked by the immune system for destruction , Fascist regimes always become as corrupt or more corrupt than those they claimed power from, whether acted upon internally or externally it always triggers a militant response from other forces, leading to their collapse.
That said whether you like it or not, fascist tendencies within the human psyche are part of a system hardwired into our subconscious and something that should be examined.
Yes, in my country, Portugal, we did that in 1974. Well it was a military revolution to be completely honest, but with the obvious support of the people. It was known as one of the most peaceful revolutions that took down a dictatorship in the world, only a couple of deaths that were commited by the dictatorship regime police at the time (PIDE), where they just decided to open fire from a window and shot a bunch of civilian protesters that were outside PIDE headquarters.
The uk very soundly put to bed Oswald Mosleys brand of national socialism.
If you think nations invade other countries to help them disband a dictatorship, you are seriously ignorant. Especially in America's case, a better question would be what dictatorships in the world were established without its help. Definitely not the Greek junta of 67. The USA warmly supported that one.
Greece ended the Military Junta with a referendum and elections.
I hope we are about to find out but one relatively small protest (more like a party) a month definitely won't.
In the UK we rounded up about 700 domestic fascists and interred them at the start of WWII. This essentially neutralized the movement. Ironically they got sent to a concentration camp.
San Marino
I think a lot of people are confusing Authoritarianism with Fascism. I might be wrong but I think the only truly Fascist regimes were the Italians and Germans in the 30s and 40s, under Mussolini and Hitler.
Just to take a few examples.
Spain- dictator died and successor introduced democratic reforms.
Argentina- dictatorship lost a minor war (to the UK in the Falklands) and popular support for it collapsed.
Chile-dictatorship thought they were more popular than they were, called an election, and lost.
Philippines-civil uprising following assassination of main opposition leader.
For Spain, it was a bit more than that. Franco had loosened his grip on the nation and slowly introduced some democratic reforms during his rule. It was completed after his death
Of all the dictators, Franco is probably the most palatable to Western culture other than maybe Castro. Neither were great dudes, but they didn't wield their power like a madman.
Well, Franco certainly did during the war itself
Franco didn't really solidify his position as the main general until almost a year in. During the start of the civil war there were all sorts of armed groups, both fighting for, and against, the government taking advantage of the chaos to settle scores and eliminate political enemies and potential rivals. Additionally locals would denounce their neighbors to settle their own scores. It was a murderous mess.
Later in the war though, as the nationalists took more territory, Franco was definitely in charge of the Nationalist forces and bears responsibility for their purges and massacres.
And shortly after too!
That may be historical relativism/propaganda at work. The Basque people I’ve met tell horrific stories of surviving under the Franco regime. He may have been just as horrifying as the others, but general history lets us think he was gentler. I guess what I’m trying to say is, he was just as much of a monster, if perhaps a bit less successful. I totally agree with you, that he’s more palatable to us. Just want to point out that’s likely because of a skewed viewpoint that’s worth looking into.
I heard enough during some of my Spanish podcasts. The mass graves they'd find sometimes mother and daughter with the kid still holding a doll.
He tried really hard isolationism with huge tariffs also that ended up starving a bunch of people if I remember correctly.
Pan’s Labyrinth was all I needed to know.
Spain is pretty good at keeping quiet about that at period of time in their history.
Dude, I am from Spain. If you talk to other Spaniards, see the politicians talk and Spanish subreddits I could say this is one of the things we talk more about. Your statment could have been true 25 years ago.
To provide more context. Both perceptions mentioned here can be true. He was the head of state from 1939 to almost 1980. That means he was a hard grip dictator at the beginning and less so / more European at the end. Because the geopolitical context changed a lot in that period.
Fuck Franco and fascism, just so we are clear. I am just trying to provide context.
It is certainly getting better as time goes on, but it's important to remember things like the pacto de olvido. It was barely a decade ago that Rajoy was still blocking efforts to exhume the mass graves of the civil war. And there are still plenty of older, conservative people in Spain who feel that the victims of Franco and their families should just move on and not talk about it anymore.
For sure, I’m in complete agreement with you, and thanks for adding to the nuance of this, which is a huge conversation. As someone from the USA (and watching my own country in horror), I guess I’m just becoming more and more allergic to any totalitarian genocidal maniac dictator being given allowance of any kind, whether in the past or the looming future. Best of luck to you out there.
Oh he very much was a monster, but he's not as badly regarded outside of Spain because he did most of the killing during the war and the first decade in power, and in the later half (the sixties to his death) he was buddies with the US and slowed down, though never really stopped, the executions
Franco absolutely did yield power like a madman. His regime was extremely violent before Americans bailed him out and that still didn't stop him from attempting Genociding minorities
The Spanish state during Franco’s rule was kidnapping babies in hospitals, and selling them through Catholic orphanages to raise funds for state projects, and remove young people from politically inconvenient families, they were burying rocks in empty graves. Not to mention the pogroms of the 50s.
He’s palatable because they know nothing about him, Spain was at least marginally an ally in the Cold War, his brutality got hidden from the western public.
Franco and the Nationalists murdered hundreds of thousands during their repression campaign during and after the civil war, what the fuck are you on about
Im not sure most people people would agree to either of them being all that palatable
Franco said a lot of very odd things
"Fascism, since that is the word that is used, fascism presents, wherever it manifests itself, characteristics which are varied to the extent that countries and national temperaments vary. It is essentially a defensive reaction of the organism, a manifestation of the desire to live, of the desire not to die, which at certain times seizes a whole people. So each people reacts in its own way, according to its conception of life. Our rising, here, has a Spanish meaning! What can it have in common with Hitlerism, which was, above all, a reaction against the state of things created by the defeat, and by the abdication and the despair that followed it?"
Franco, 1938
"A totalitarian state will harmonize in Spain the operation of all the capabilities and energy in the country, that inside the National Unity, the work esteemed as the most unavoidable must be the only exponent of the people's will."
Franco, 1939
"Let us be under no illusion. The Jewish spirit which was responsible for the alliance of large-scale capital with Marxism and was the driving force behind so many anti-Spanish revolutionary agreements, will not be got rid of in a day."
Franco, 1929
"We have torn up Marxist materialism and we have disorientated Masonry. We have thwarted the Satanic machinations of the clandestine Masonic superstate. Despite its control of the world’s press and numerous international politicians. Spain’s struggle is a Crusade; as soldiers of God we carry with us the evangelism of the world!"
Franco, 1945
"The whole secret of the campaigns unleashed against Spain can be explained in two words: Masonry and Communism... we have to extirpate these two evils from our land."
Franco, 1946
...........
stranger still
"General Franco is an authentic national hero. It is generally conceded that he above others had the combination of talents, the perseverance, and the sense of righteousness of his cause, that were required to wrest Spain from the hands of the visionaries, ideologues, Marxists and nihlistis that were imposing on her, in the thirties, a regime so grotesque as to do violence to the Spanish soul, to deny, even Spain's historical identity."
William F. Buckley, Jr.
I think Salazar (Portugal) is more palable. He was more a Christian conservative than a fascist.
Depends to who, because his colonial policies in Africa were pretty disgraceful for people who study a bit about it
I agree he was pretty disgraceful in this respect, but what does this have to do with fascism? Atrocious Colonialism was practiced by virtually all european powers. GB, France, Belgium were not fascists. Even if your thinking post WW2, France was horrible, and it was not a fascist state.
I didnt call him fascist (although Salazar is often considered fascist, as he was kind of in the same moment as Hitler, Mussolini and Franco), I just dont think he's that palatable. When it comes to more palatable dictstors, I think Perron and Vargas from south America have a much stronger case, they're still kind of popular in their countries even
The resistance also assassinated Franco's successor apperent. After that there was no clear direction for Spanish fascism to go
Spain's earliest contribution to the space race!
The amount of money England was throwing at Spain to keep them out of the war also helped
From dicta-dura to dicta-blanda, was the joke at the time.
Context for non-hispanophones:
"Dictadura" translates to 'dictatorship'; "Dura" translates to 'hard', and "Blanda" translates to 'soft'.
"Called an election and lost" is a truly historic way for your regime to fail.
I once heard an interview with Jimmy Carter about this- the Carter Center has mediated a number of democratic transitions. His take was that political leaders fundamentally want to believe that they are heroes in the eyes of their people, and his role was to sweet talk them into actually putting that belief to the test.
In Malawi in 1992 the presidents advisers told him that he was so popular, they no longer needed to rig elections. He lost power that year.
Okay, my fellow Americans… meet me on Truth Social, I’ve got an idea
do it.gif
RIP President Carter
What’s notable is that Pinochet was in a position of total dictatorial power, called an election, lost, and then accepted the results of the election and gave up power.
Which is quite unique.
That’s partially true. Pinochet genuinely thought he was going to win, so it was a total shock to him when he lost. He did try to get the Military to launch another coup, but General Fernando Matthei, the Air Force Commander, himself a far more humane and moderate commander than his predecessor General Gustavo Leigh (whom most sources claim was the real brain of the 1973 coup) refused to go along with this. Matthei essentially forced Pinochet to back down.
Reminds me of Chun Doo-hwan losing power in Korea. But he wasn't naive. He knew he could not win fairly. He was going to order the military to suppress protests again but the military refused.
So he promised he'd step down and announced his successor Roh Tae-woo.
People were like "fuck that. we want free election"
And he was like "alright. free election by a specially chosen group of people. don't ask more"
And people were like "fuck that. we meant direct election."
and so it happened. Direct election in 1987. And the winner was Roh Tae-woo, yes the guy who was going to be the successor anyway.
Chun Doo-hwan was like "Roh Tae-woo is one of my comrades. He won't fuck me over."
He was wrong.
Pro-democracy people were like "We fought for democracy only for power to go to that fucking guy? I hope none of our leaders cooperate with him. He must become a failed president."
They were wrong too. There were two big pro-democracy leaders. Roh formed an alliance with one of them to have a majority government. The other one was pissed off.
The current conservative party in Korea can be traced back to that alliance. And the progressive party to the other one.
Probably felt that if he refused to step down, there would be a revolution, and that he may no longer have the support of the military
There's gotta be more to that story, right? Like maybe he didn't have the support of the military anymore?
He did promise a return to democracy some time before, ergo his coup was "a preemptive action against communists" as he claimed iirc
Exactly this. Pinochet genuinely thought he was going to win, so it was a total shock to him when he lost. He did try to get the Military to launch another coup, but General Fernando Matthei, the Air Force Commander, himself a far more humane and moderate commander than his predecessor General Gustavo Leigh (whom most sources claim was the real brain of the 1973 coup) refused to go along with this. Matthei essentially forced Pinochet to back down.
If I recall, he tried to have the military overturn the election results, but the generals refused to go along with him, so he had no choice but to back down.
There was - I had a friend from Chile who insists that the regime saw this as a CIA action and got out while the getting was good - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Chilean_grape_scare
The took the election loss and got out of town.
And, if I recall correctly, still kept his seat in parliament, right?
Imagine if the others had done that. Hitler as minority leader, huh.
That's very democratic of them.
Portugal democratized after the illness and death of dictator Salazar. He had a cerebral hemorrhage and then went into a coma for a month when he was 79 years old. They replaced him while he was comatose because everyone assumed he was going to die very soon without regaining consciousness.
Then he made a surprising recovery and lived for another 23 months. Rather than telling the still ill old man that he was replaced, his cronies just let him believe he was still all-powerful and sign decrees and give orders in private until he died in 1970. Then four years after his death a coup by a junta of left-wing lower-ranking officers overthrew his dictatorship in what is now called the Carnation Revolution. There was not only a military coup but also a popular civilian movement in support of the coup.
Taiwan also gradually reformed their way out of a right-wing dictatorship, if we are going to define fascism fairly loosely. The dictator Chiang Ching-kuo, son of Chiang Kai-shek, started to gradually reformed their way the country after it became clear the ROC was never going to retake mainland China. He started focus on the island’s economy and inviting younger Taiwanese-born people to become legislators. He tried to enforce one-party rule with an iron fist for as long as possible but in the end he decided it was no longer tenable to keep the dictatorship going. It was becoming too unpopular and Taiwan is losing international support due to it.
So he lifted martial law after 38 continuous years in 1987, the longest period any country had been under martial law, and thus ending what was called “the White Terror”. He died and was succeeded by a Taiwanese born president in 1988 who then made further reforms to allow democratic elections by 1996.
79 years old you say?
Sincerely, an American
Yeah, it's pretty funny that Salazar went into a coma and then came out of it and then they just pretended he wasn't replaced. Like they held cabinet meetings with him and insulted the guy who is now charge in front of him. Salazar even gave an interview shortly before death to a French paper where he clearly thought he was still the prime minister.
This would work with our guy too, no doubt.
I’d also like to add a more recent example, South Korea. South Korean president tried to declare martial law and arrest opposition leaders. Citizens of South Korean immediately grounded the country to a halt in economic, and productivitive faculties.
South Korea is also a relatively young democracy. Prior to 1987 it went through various military/fascist regimes before the government faced growing pressure to democratise. That commitment would not be fully realised until 1997 in the first peaceful transfer of power for the country.
This is an example of a democracy working as intended to protect itself. It's not what OP asked, which is about cases like the United States which have already fallen into fascism.
Portugal as well with the Carnation revolution
This is what first came to mind for me. Basically the ideal way for a regime to fall, but a pipe dream for the vast majority.
First to come to my mind. Everyone knows about Franco, but we all forget about Salazar.
In terms of death toll it wasn't a massive war but the amount of equipment Argentina lost along with prestigious things like their flagship it was a fairly large war for Argentina
But it didn't result in the British marching into Buenos Aires or even a peace agreement that involved the dictatorship giving up power.
The entire selling point of shitty ideologies like these is being macho and warlike.
They don’t have “minor wars” because their viewpoint on war isn’t really all that rational to begin with. Every fight becomes an existential question towards national pride.
No but losing about half of your air force and massive demoralising blows like the flagship being lost is certainly going to rile people up a lot more than just a small border war with the same number of deaths but no real material loss
Amusingly, you still see Malvinas rhetoric commonly throughout Argentina. Street signs often have "Las Malvinas Son Nuestras" (the Malvinas are ours!) printed on the back. Pretty sure Milei has hinted at wanting the islands back. All of the maps refer to them as the Malvinas rather than the Falklands. Hell, the World Cup team broke out some chants about it after winning in 2022. https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/argentina-chant-english-falklands-war-world-cup/
Honestly it's pretty pathetic. An entire country to be so pent up about losing a war they started whilst trying to invade somewhere they've never owned.
It's a popular sentiment among argentine leftists. The amount of time we have to point out that Argentina's claim is so incredibly tentative and was one of the few pieces of land that Britain claimed that genuinely were uninhabited. Not to mention that the entirety of the inhabitants are majorly in favor of continued rule from Briyish. Like I hate British empire too, but you guys gotta take the L on this one. This isn't even the only example of "imperialism issues" involving Argentina but they can't let it go.
The Brits managed a Vulcan bombing raid across thousands of miles on the Falklands and it scared Argentina into pulling air assets back to protect BA in case city bombing started.
Their tactical value was low, and the chance of actually attacking Argentina was low, but Thatcher's govt kept it very on the table to let it be known there was a chance.
The moment a dictator's population sees the regime is scared, they're on very thin ice.
I'll add in the Philippines, Marcos Sr. also decided to have an election, and clearly lost. It was his obvious theft* of the election that led to the generally peaceful uprising.
Portugal: the carnation revolution.
Greece.
Taiwan.
South Korea.
Serious question: did Chile’s dictatorship just go, “Oh, looks like we lost. Here you go 🔑”?
No. Pinochet genuinely thought he was going to win, so it was a total shock to him when he lost. He did try to get the Military to launch another coup, but General Fernando Matthei, the Air Force Commander, himself a far more humane and moderate commander than his predecessor General Gustavo Leigh (whom most sources claim was the real brain of the 1973 coup) refused to go along with this. Matthei essentially forced Pinochet to back down.
I’m seeing a pattern here.
It'sa me?
Portugal, the dictator died and the successors just weren't cutting it. Underground a revolution was organized between military and I believe police and during the dead of the night they just peacefully took over. Afaik only a handful died as the coup had majority support among the population.
Police was not involved at all. The movement was planned by mid-rank career officers (captains/majors primarily), dissatisfied with the political leadership refusing the reality that the wars in Africa could not be won militarily.
I don't OP is looking for examples of military dictatorships that went on for decades until the dictator died=)
The Argentine regime already lost popular support before the war, the war was a failed attempt to gain it back.
Are you talking fascism or authoritarian? As I’m not sure even Franco was really fascist and he was the most so on that list.
One party state with all real power centralized in the executive branch. Severe curbs on freedom of assembly and speech (for example, the only allowed trade union was controlled by the Falange, made public use of the Basque language illegal.). Coupled with a right-wing ideology I have no problem calling them Fascist.
The Argentinian dictatorship was also Fascist in its focus on eliminating diversity in society.
You described authoritarianism and nationalism, which is pretty historically accurate. Most historians don't hold the belief that Franco's Spain was fascist anymore
Yeah. Spain had fascist elements but wasn’t overtly fascist. Especially given the Carlists being a major part of the coalition. Salazar next door was actively anti fascist and was just regular authoritarian. I think Franco’s Spain was similar to that.
ehhh as much as Marcos Sr. was hated and a dictator, don't know about classifying him as a fascist. Cool revolution though, EDSA revolution.