My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosley16 - The Founding of the British Union of FascistsFASCISM was in essence a national creed, and therefore by definition took anentirely different form in different countries. In origin, it was an explosion againstintolerable conditions, against remediable wrongs which the old world had failed toremedy. It was a movement to secure national renaissance by people who feltthemselves threatened with decline into decadence and death and were determined tolive, and live greatly. Without understanding these three basic facts it is possible toabuse fascism, but not to make a serious reply to its case and to its spirit. They can nomore be smothered by abuse than they can finally be suppressed by force; anargument must be answered if it is to be defeated, and to be answered it must first beunderstood.Fascism does not exist at present, not because it has been answered, but because itbelongs to the epoch before the Second World War. Since that period science haspresented us with a new set of facts, the errors of fascism have provided their lessons,and nationalism has been extended to a European patriotism. Those of us who werefascists can learn both from new facts and from our own mistakes; it is easy to learnfrom errors for which we were not ourselves responsible, particularly when we areconfident that we personally would have avoided them. At my worst, I have nevermade any claim to infallibility, which I leave to those responsible for the presentcondition of the world. After the war I faced fresh facts, learnt from past mistakes,and felt free to become a European.Why then, had I become a fascist? For an answer to this question we must return tothe autumn of 1931. The victory of the National Government in the election ofOctober that year crushed the New Party and gave complete power to men who weknew from bitter experience would do nothing except hasten the gradual decline ofour country into the decadence of a second-rate power, even should they be saved byexternal factors of which they understood little from bringing its speedy ruin. Thedegree of crisis in Britain had been insufficient to secure the national consensus ofevery vital element necessary to save the country, and after the frustration of all ourefforts within Parliament the continuing complacency of the electorate defeated theNew Party in the landslide of 1931. Yet we were more than ever convinced thatsooner or later a supreme effort must be made by the British people if the nation wasto live in any form worthy of its greatness—still recognisable as the land we loved—or even to survive at all.What were we to do?—Just give up? Lord Beaverbrook at this point made me an offerto write for his papers. He was always a good friend when you were down, but somesaid not so good when you were up. Lloyd George once said to me: 'Max alwayswants to cut the heads off the tall poppies. That is his whole psychology.' My headhad been well and truly cut off by the election of 1931, and he at once made me thisoffer. I take it now, as I took it then, to be a gesture of friendship which should beappreciated, but I preferred to keep my complete independence. Siren voices alsowere not lacking to suggest that we had ample gifts and means still to enjoy life andthat the deluge might come after us. Staid and influential voices answered in theconflict of conscience—coming curiously from the Right, to which I neverbelonged—advising that I should make a tour of the Empire and return as its expert torally the forces of an imperial conservatism. I felt that my part was neither the239 of 424