Editing Interwar period (section)

=== The rise of fascism ===
{{Main|Fascism|European interwar dictatorships}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H12943, Münchener Abkommen, Hitler und Mussolini.jpg|thumb|Cheering crowds greet [[Adolf Hitler]] and [[Benito Mussolini]] in Munich, 1938]]

Democracy and prosperity largely went together in the 1920s. Economic disaster led to a distrust in the effectiveness of democracy and its collapse in much of Europe and Latin America, including the Baltic and Balkan countries, Poland, Spain, and Portugal. Powerful expansionary anti-democratic regimes emerged in Italy, Japan, and Germany.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Marc |last1=Matera |first2=Susan Kingsley |last2=Kent |title=The Global 1930s: The International Decade |publisher=Routledge |year=2017 |page=192 |isbn=978-0-415-73830-9 }}</ref>

[[Italian fascism|Fascism]] took control of the [[Kingdom of Italy]] in 1922; as the Great Depression worsened, [[Nazism]] emerged victorious in Germany, fascism spread to many other countries in Europe, and also played a major role in several countries in Latin America.<ref>{{cite book |first=Stanley G. |last=Payne |title=A History of Fascism, 1914–1945 |location=Madison |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |year=1995 |isbn=0-299-14870-X }}</ref> Fascist parties sprang up, attuned to local right-wing traditions, but also possessing common features that typically included extreme militaristic nationalism, a desire for economic self-containment, threats and aggression toward neighbouring countries, oppression of minorities, a ridicule of democracy while using its techniques to mobilise an angry middle-class base, and a disgust with [[cultural liberalism]]. Fascists believed in power, violence, male superiority, and a "natural" hierarchy, often led by dictators such as [[Benito Mussolini]] or [[Adolf Hitler]]. Fascism in power meant that liberalism and human rights were discarded, and individual pursuits and values were subordinated to what the party decided was best.<ref>{{cite book |first=Robert |last=Soucy |chapter=Fascism |chapter-url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/fascism/Common-characteristics-of-fascist-movements |title=Encyclopaedia Britannica |year=2015 |access-date=2 December 2017 |archive-date=25 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181025142743/https://www.britannica.com/topic/fascism/Common-characteristics-of-fascist-movements |url-status=live }}</ref>