In my diploma thesis I explored the development and rise of authoritarian and fascist regimes during the interwar period. The comparison comprised Southwestern European countries, the kingdoms of Yugoslavia and Romania, and Western European countries, the United Kingdom and Portugal. In the interwar period, Europe underwent enormous political changes that eventually led to World War II. In Romania and Yugoslavia, the situation brought about the monarchic dictatorship of kings Charles II and Alexander I respectively. In Portugal, the power in the country was taken over by the prime minister Antonio de Oliveira Salazar who established a corporatist authoritarian state. Besides Yugoslavia, the development of nationwide fascism occurred in Romania and Portugal as well as in the United Kingdom. In all three latter cases, the common features of the fascism were nationalism, populism, and antisemitism. In Romania, the Legion of the Archangel Michael was led by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. In Portugal, the leader of the National Syndicalists Movement was Francisco de Barcelos Rolão Preto. And in the United Kingdom, the greatest success among the fascists was achieved by the leader of the British Union of Fascists, Oswald Mosley. The corporatism, which emerged within the Christian social policy, became the principal economic model of the fascists of that time.
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