That was pretty long and informative. Great work marsattacks! Though it gave more topics to research on such as what is socialism, radicalism, right wing and left wing.
I am not complaining but merely highlighting my lack of knowledge on such topics which will further help me understand the motives of everyone involved.
For all their behavioural similarities communism and fascism have fundamentally incompatible philosophies. Fascism is built on a foundation of ethno-nationalism and the idea of superior bloodlines producing superior people.
Communism is based on the foundation that all men are equal.
These are beliefs that cannot be sustained if the other is shown to be successful. They need to destroy each other to justify their belief.
We see the same situation between the socialist and marketist ideological positions on economics.
In theory, they have diametrically opposed views of who should rule. Fascism is based on a single leader (e.g. Hitler, Mussolini, Franco) overseeing the welfare of the people.
Communism (in theory) is the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, in which the people rule themselves, and government just fills in the gaps (whose output goes to who - iron and coal to steel mill, steel to military, building, and so on.). The Party guides the government, educates the people in revolutionary theory, and sees to political matters.
So they are bound to conflict.
Now, in reality, the primary fascist (who called himself a socialist, and a revolutionary) was paranoid and insane, and saw to it that the state was violently expansionist, and killed and/or imprisoned people who were opposed to the regime or were judged to be better just plain gone (e.g Jews.). The people were watched carefully by a secret police who could make those deemed bad for the regime disappear. Special camps were set up to hold these people and make them work as slaves, or die.
In reality, the primary communist (who called himself a socialist, and a revolutionary) was paranoid and insane, and saw to it that the state was violently expansionist, and killed and/or imprisoned people who were opposed to the regime or were judged to be better just plain gone (e.g Kulaks.). The people were watched carefully by a secret police who could make those deemed bad for the regime disappear. Special camps were set up to hold these people and make them work as slaves, or die.
So yes, in practice, the Soviets and the Nazi’s were almost indistinguishable in their effect on the counties they ruled, though the Nazi’s had better uniforms.
“Fascism”, unlike Communism, has no manifesto to appeal to, which makes it tougher to define. However, one aspect of Fascism that Indy talked about a bit in the Between 2 Wars series was that Fascism inherently calls for hating Communism, which would make the hatred tautological.
What about the “Doctrine of Fascism” by Mussolini?
Even if the “Doctrine of Fascism” were actually written by Mussolini, it wouldn’t be a work of political philosophy like “Das Kapital” or “The Communist Manifesto”. In “Doctrine of Fascism”, the author largely defines Fascism merely in terms of rejecting “liberalism”(note the lower case ‘l’ that I’m using) and Communism.
I have not found anything in this, to doubt Mussolini was not in accord with this.
“This article, co-written by Giovanni Gentile, is considered to be the most complete articulation of Mussolini’s political views”
Mussolini’s political views were simply disliking other philosophies such as Communism and liberalism, calling for extremely authoritarian means to suppress them, and lots of empire-building.
That sounds surprisingly contemporary