Chapter 2 systematically presents the book’s theoretical approach. After acknowledging the contribution of various causal factors to democratic breakdown during the interwar years, it highlights the fundamental role of the double deterrent effect. Because established elites saw both revolutionary Communism and its most potent antidote, counterrevolutionary fascism, as serious dangers, they used their preponderant power capabilities to impose conservative authoritarianism as a safeguard in many countries. These threat perceptions and dictatorial reactions were driven by basic mechanisms of cognitive psychology. With their deviation from standard rationality, heuristic shortcuts and asymmetrical loss aversion gave rise to striking misperceptions and overreactions, which help account for the proliferation of autocracy and the horrendous, “unnecessary” bloodletting of the 1920s and 1930s.

Does the recent wave of right-wing populism foreshadow a revival of fascism? To elucidate this question, this book examines the politics of fascism, authoritarianism, and Communism during the interwar years. In this way, the study sheds light on the reversal of liberal progress during this era, which brought the frequent downfall of democracy and the proliferation of authoritarianism and fascism. This autocratic riptide arose from a massive backlash against Communism and from conservative elites' wariness of fascism and their preference for authoritarian rule. After summarizing the book's main argument, the chapter explains its scholarly contributions, its research design & sources, and central concepts, namely fascism and reactionary rule. It ends with brief chapter summaries.

This chapter examines how establishment sectors, ranging from the right to the moderate left, responded to the rash efforts of radical left-wingers to replicate Lenin's revolutionary success in Russia in a wide range of countries. Fearful of Communism, status-quo defenders everywhere squashed these precipitous uprisings. For this purpose, they employed excessive violence and resorted to significant "overkill." This reaction was driven by cognitive heuristics, which inspired an overestimation of the extreme-left threat and which activated loss aversion and thus prompted a disproportionately drastic response. Going beyond repression, the reaction to this early riptide of left-wing revolutionary efforts included the emergence of fascism in Italy, which arose in direct struggle against leftist contention; and the imposition of authoritarianism in Hungary, which followed upon a failed "Soviet Republic." The chapter provides substantial analyses of these two cases and explains why different types of autocracy emerged in these two countries.

Chapter 3 examines the immediate impact of the Russian Revolution, which triggered the proliferation of autocracy during the interwar years. With ample primary sources, the chapter documents how Lenin’s success quickly stimulated a wave of radical-left emulation efforts, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. Driven by cognitive shortcuts, rather than fully rational decision-making, these imitation attempts were precipitous and ill-planned; therefore, they uniformly failed. The chapter investigates the experiences of many countries, especially the Baltic States, Finland, Germany, and Hungary.