Editorial – Fascism is Marxist Socialism with Italian Characteristics

The pre-Second World War left-wing Marxist-Communists nominally viewed the fascists as governments of the inter-war period as “right-wing extremist experiments.” That was pure communist theater and political rhetoric. It had no real basis in fact. The rise of the totalitarian anti-capitalist state of the Soviet Union gave them a podium to shout from. The soviet communists of Stalin’s era loudly labeled the fascist states who provoked the Second World War as right-wing military extremist governments.

Sadly for the Soviets, their communist experiment was desperately struggling. It’s flawed understanding of the importance of the information obtained from the free market price system ultimately led to its final collapse.  Thus ended the first large-scale experiment in communist governments.

However Stalin’s transparently false propaganda label of fascism as an authoritarian far right social structure stuck. The left-wing extremism of communism was wrongly contrasted to the frequently misunderstood caricature of right-wing extremist fascism. That caricature fit the Marxist-Communist rhetoric perfectly, but it did not approach the truth.

Nonetheless that rhetoric also stuck in the West.  It stuck because it was perpetuated by the western academic Marxist and Communist professors and their admires who were happy to repeat it.

The repulsive, murderously racist rhetoric of the National Socialists in Europe caused the Italian experiment in fascism to be mostly ignored and misunderstood (when it wasn’t being laughed at as being some kind of a caricature of a tragically flawed comic opera). The many horrors of World War II blinded most of the serious academic analysts after WW II from looking any deeper into what fascism really was and is.

Most subsequent attempts to accurately define fascism attempted by well-meaning and often well-read western centrists have also been badly flawed due to the preexisting descriptions of fascism is. The analyses focused on the militantly authoritarian nature of those fascist states and quickly jumped to affirm the extremist right-wing label.

However, those incomplete analyses were superficial and they sadly missed the distinguishing core essence which differentiates fascism from the caricature of brutal but also cartoonish military dictators.

Fascism has a Father who Clearly Explained The Essence of His System

The undisputed Father of fascism is the Italian political theorist Giovanni Gentile. He openly considered Karl Marx to be his most influential political mentor. He also admired the German materialist, idealist thinker Hegel, and Friedrich Nietzsche. For his entire life Gentile also considered himself to be a cultural Roman Catholic. He was also a strong Italian nationalist and he supported the Risorgimento, the unification or decolonization of Italy led by Victor Emmanuel II in the late 1800s. He also supported the postunification irredentism (the acquisition of lands and ports on the shoreline of the Adriatic Sea adjacent to Italy which were inhabited by significant populations of Italians). He was also a prolific writer, so his political thoughts on fascism were well-recorded for posterity.

Fascism is Marxist Socialism with Italian Characteristics

As a fan of Marxist socialism, and an independent thinker, Gentile fashioned his own ideal of the perfect socialist state. Like Communism, the state would control the means of production and provide for the welfare of the common people in society.

Gentile’s wrinkle was the subtle distinction between ownership on a paper title of a company, and control of that enterprise. Under Gentile’s version of socialism the nominal owners of the means of production would be shackled by the coercive power of state regulations. The government would control the means of production by regulatory capture of that means by the state. Nominal ownership is not control.  Gentile was quick to share this trick with his newfound ally, Benito Mussolini in 1921.

Stalin and the Soviet Spinmeisters Claimed that the Italian and the German Capitalist Controlled the Fascist State

Indeed in 1921 the Italian Capitalists thought they could use nutty Mussolini’s blackshirts to defeat the true enemies of the Italian Capitalists, the rising Italian Communists party.

Twelve years later the German industrialists thought the same thing. They enabled and financed Hitler so they could let the goofy, goose-stepping brownshirts loose against the German Communists.

The Actual Truth is the Other Way Around – The Fascists Controlled the Capitalists

In both cases the tides turned first on the Italian industrialists and then again, twelve years later on their German counterparts.

A careful examination of the historical fact shows that Benito Mussolini was the wise weevil who ultimately got the Italian capitalist to submit to absolute government control of their enterprises.

There is plenty of historical evidence that supports both Mussolini and the Italian Capitalists acting their individual interests. Capitalist entrepreneurs did try to control Italy. They thought they could support Mussolini’s rise to power while they maintained the real control of the Italian government from the shadows.

However, once Mussolini and his Blackshirt thugs marched on Rome in October of 1922, and the king appointed him as Italy’s Prime Minister, power contest was quickly resolved. Mussolini was in control of the Italian industrialist, from then on.

Like the old joke that a man chases a woman until she catches him. Mussolini proved more politically able than the Italian power elite entrepreneurs, and his fascist state wound up controlling their means of production.

Twelve years later Adolf Hitler walked the same complex two-way-street. As a not-so-obscure political revolutionary, Hitler and his core of pocket minions allowed the Germany power elite capitalists to finance him. But when Hitler weaseled his way into becoming the new Chancellor of Germany, in 1933, the game was over for his wealthy supporters. As had happened in Mussolini’s Italy, the capitalists were allowed to prosper personally and to run their enterprises only as long as their activities served the interests or Herr Hitler and his gang of thugs.

The Wise Weevil Fascist Leaders Used Socialism to Control The Masses

After they gained control of the respective governments both Mussolini and Hitler knew they had to have control of and to be supported by the people, the mob, the rabble of their societies. People may feign noble motives, but in the end they mostly act in their own self-interests. Both of our nascent fascists understood that self-interest is the core nature of human beings. Selfless sharing and altruism are exceptional acts.  Both dictators made sure to provide the ample benefits of socialism to their people.

Socialism promises everything to the common man. It is not a coincidence that NAZI party title is a contraction of the German words meaning “national socialist” party. That was the signal Hitler intended to send to the German people: lo and behold, the trains did run on time.

The Core Essence of Fascism is Control of Everything

In a fascist system the government owns nothing but it controls everything. The house you think you own or the factory you think you own just because your name is on the ownership title statement, gives you no control over how the asset is used! In fact under a fascist government, ownership doesn’t mean a thing. The government has so many rules and regulations and so much unchecked power that the actual control of everything is in the hands of the government. This is the sense in which communism and fascism are two different names for the same politically leftist system. Both require an extensive bureaucracy and powerful police system to maintain control of the people and of their material possessions which the state nonetheless controls.

Conclusions

Modern wise weevil politicians are more fascist than Hitler or Mussolini ever were.  Modern states which are all nominally democratic republics have rapidly been morphing into digital surveillance states which are increasingly controlling every area of life and thought in their populations. When the out of power political party accuses the currently in power political party of being fascists, they are pretty much never wrong, no matter which party is doing the accusing.

Speaking of the current age, Dennis Prager pragmatically says:

“Fascist is the word left-wingers use to describe everyone who’s anti-left.”

and

“Socialism is a bigger and bigger government, where the government takes care of the social order if you will. The bigger the government the more socialistic it is. Generally speaking the socialist governments ignore mom and pop stores or individual restaurants, but they will ‘nationalize’ big things, the railroads, the oil industry, etc, etc. ”