Politics

John Lukacs claims Nazism and communism are essentially manifestations of populism and that Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy are more different from each other than they are similar

Ruth Ben-Ghiat described fascism as the original phase of authoritarianism along with early communism when a population has undergone huge dislocations or perceives rapid societal changes.

Roderick Stackelberg places fascism including Nazism on the political right by explaining that views on equality determine placement on the ideological spectrum.

Italian fascism gravitated to the right in the early 1920s.

Major Italian groups on the right feared an uprising by groups on the left.

The fascist right included Blackshirts and former members of the Italian Nationalist Association.

Monarchist fascists sought to use fascism to create an absolute monarchy under King Victor Emmanuel III.

Orwell said the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless and signifies something not desirable.

Chinese Marxists used the term to denounce the Soviet Union during the Sino-Soviet split Soviets used the term to denounce Chinese Marxists in addition to social democracy coining a new term in social fascism

The Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s was sometimes called fascist

Since end of World War II in 1945 fascism has been largely disgraced few parties have openly described themselves as fascist term is often used pejoratively by political opponents

Fascist style is a political aesthetic of romantic symbolism mass mobilization a positive view of violence and promotion of masculinity youth and charismatic authoritarian leadership

According to Griffin there is no genuine fascism without palingenetic ultranationalism

Walter Laqueur sees the core tenets of fascism as self-evident nationalism social Darwinism racialism the need for leadership a new aristocracy and obedience and the negation of the ideals of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution

Kershaw argues the difference between fascism and other forms of right-wing authoritarianism in the interwar period is that the latter generally aimed to conserve the existing social order whereas fascism was revolutionary seeking to change society and obtain total commitment from the population

They refer to the combination of populism authoritarianism and ultranationalism as a marriage of convenience

Robert Paxton says fascism is a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity energy and purity in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion

This was name given to political organizations in Italy known as fasci groups similar to guilds or syndicates

According to Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini's own account Fasces of Revolutionary Action were founded in Italy in 1915

Each group described as "fascist" has at least some unique elements frequently definitions of "fascism" have been criticized as either too broad or too narrow