Fascism in one form or another has afflicted humanity for as long as civilization has existed. Genghis Khan arguably employed fascistic methods to achieve his ends in the twelfth century. But he was neither the first nor the last. It wasn’t however until Benito Mussolini authored his original Doctrine of Fascism in 1932 that fascism had a quasi- governmental structure.

As the conflicts and divisions that would propel the world to war began to take shape in the mid to late 1930s Benito Mussolini, Adolph Hitler and Francisco Franco began to coordinate their efforts. Notice of what was soon to come was served at Guernica in the Basque Country, Spain on 26 April 1937.

Franco viewed Guernica as a stronghold for Republican partisans and he sought to break the back of the resistance. The plan that Franco, Hitler and Mussolini hatched was to drop bombs from airplanes on Guernica. While a commonplace military tactic during World War II and after, aerial bombardment had never been seen before that moment. Guernica was in fact the first target of such a bombing. The destruction was massive. As is always the case with airstrikes combatants and civilians both die, but the civilians die in far greater numbers. That was the case in Guernica and thousands of other targets as the war progressed.

It Bears noting that a number of American Republicans calling themselves the Lincoln Battalion or the Abraham Lincoln Brigade volunteered to fight alongside of the Spanish Republican forces, socialists, anarchists, communists and separatists to turn back Franco’s Nationalists. The American Republican fighters were the vanguard of the U.S. war effort that was coming.

The battle to stop the Nazis, Fascists and Nationalists would ultimately be the most costly and devastating conflict the world has ever known. Those who fought, sacrificed and gave their lives would be come to be known throughout the Western world as the Greatest Generation.

The Nazis, Fascists and Nationalists were indeed defeated but their ideology survived lying dormant, waiting for a new opportunity to dominate through intimidation, fear, oppression and ruthless conquest. Now 85 years later we have a generation of neo-Nazis, Fascists and Nationalists testing their limits and probing for weaknesses in the rules based order.

They like their predecessors would have you believe that those who oppose them are the troublemakers, the disrupters, the terrorists, those who would threaten, even derail the new age of security and prosperity that could be achieved through their methods alone. The time-tested tropes. Indeed for a time the trains did run on time in Mussolini’s Italy, the German depression era economy roared beck to life and there seemed to be no limit to what could be achieved by those bold enough to seize the moment and control of the worlds affairs.

In the early stages of the U.S. invasion of Iraq a Washington Post reporter, Rick Atkinson asked Major General David Petraeus what should have been a fairly routine question about how the mission was going as it was going well at that point. The answer Petraeus gave proved somewhat prophetic, “Tell me how this ends ... tell me how this ends.” The truth was not in how World War II began but in how it ended. The Second World War ended in utter disaster for its architects and a new world order constructed to prevent a reoccurrence such events.

So if you identify with the struggle against authoritarianism in all its forms take heart, you stand on the shoulders of the Greatest Generation. Make it a good fight, one they would be proud of.