Fascism as a Form of Socialism
Birds of a feather; Marx, Hitler, Mussolini, Giovanni Gentile and Georges Sorel
Dima Vorobiev once claimed that fascism is a form of socialism:
Socialism—both in its Marxist and Fascist varieties—springs from the Platonic conviction that there’s an ideal form of human society, infinitely superior to what we have. It takes a concerted effort of the most enlightened (patriotic, ideologically educated, woke) among us to lead the rest toward this. People cannot be trusted to organize their lives in the most rational way. They need proactive help. Deep down inside, Socialist teachings differ from each other only by the degree and form of intrusion that the Society (for Marxists) or the Nation (for Fascists) need to impose in our individual lives.
Dima Vorobiev (Quora)
In order to justify Vorobiev’s claim, it can be shown that socialism and fascism are analogous, and have a common ideological ancestry, and not just that they coincide because they both spoke to the issues of the time.
Socialism is a diverse collection of contradictory ideologies that share in common the idea of dispersing the concentration of wealth and political power from an elite to create a fairer society — this is to be achieved by collectivising property and political power. Socialists vary by the degree to which they believe property should be private vs public/collective, and to whether the new political power should be decentralised or centralised.
Essentially a political ideology can be judged to be socialistic if it is characterised with policies where important resources are to be public, rather than private.
Some socialists believe in a transitional process in which the political power is at first a vanguard revolutionary party wielding centralised state power through a bureaucracy, which will then devolve to decentralised collectives. When it is suggested that fascism is a form of socialism, the form of socialism in mind are the kinds characterised by centralised state power in the hands of a vanguard party and its bureaucracy.
As Vorobiev observes, the fascists substituted the left’s favored collective of “Society” for the “Nation”—both spoke of and appealed to the “proletariat.” Many other aspects of fascism are similar to Marxism. Below are some of those commonalities.
Collectivism: as we have seen, society vs. nation
Hierarchy: collective interests above individual interests, submission to a common purpose
Militant progressivism: the desire to transform the social order towards the ideological vision, usually by revolutionary violence
Demagoguery: Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, Marx, Lenin, Guevara, Castro etc.
The hubristic belief in the goodness of the ideology and its proponents
Hate for minorities perceived as the cause of social/national decay: the capitalists, bourgeoisie, Jews, homosexuals, disabled, political opponents etc.
The sense of entitlement to define the social order or even morality itself
Disdain for capitalism, property rights, and the bourgeoisie — seen as selfish, parasitic, individualistic, hedonistic
These traits are found in religious cults, and this, it seems, is no coincidence. Gustave Le Bon draws our attention to the religious nature of socialism in his 1899 work, ‘The Psychology of Socialism’.
The apostles of Socialism, who anathematise or deny the old dogmas of Christianity, are none the less eminently religious persons. The nature of their faith has changed, but they are still under the sway of all the ancestral instincts of their race. The paradisial society of their dreams is very like the celestial paradise of our fathers. In these ingenuous minds, entirely at the mercy of atavism, the old deism is objectified under the earthly form of a providential State, repairing all injustice, and possessing the illimitable power of the ancient gods.
Gustave Le Bon, 1899, The Psychology of Socialism
As can readily be seen by the shared traits, the essentially crypto-religious nature of socialism is also paralleled in fascism. The parallels are not superficial, they are due to a common philosophical heritage rather than a coincidental. One common intellectual thread influencing Marxism and fascism is Hegel’s philosophy or “Hegelianism”.
Hegel, Marx, and the Italian fascists
Benito Mussolini and some of his followers, such as Giovanni Gentile, were influenced by Hegelian philosophy. They believed that the state should be the ultimate expression of the national will and should be led by a strong leader who embodied the spirit of the people. They also believed that the state should play a central role in directing the nation's economic and social development, and that it should be above any individual or group interest. Hegelianism is relevant to this thesis because Hegel identified the transformative role of the bourgeoisie and because Marxism is an ideological framework that draws heavily on the dialectical method of Hegelianism.
Hegel’s importance lies chiefly in his ability to identify the bourgeois character of the civil society. He explicitly used burgerlische Gesellschaft (bourgeois society) which is not a direct translation of the term civil society as it is commonly used in English. Hegel, obviously, redefined the term by underlining its bourgeois character. By doing this, he replaced civil society into its historico-social context. Furthermore, state and civil society have not just separated; but both have been structurally transformed. Thus, Hegel’s project appears to classify those new forms of state and civil society and to relink them.
The crucial point of the argument is that the differentiation of state and civil society is avowedly a modern product of capitalism. Under feudalism, the state and civil society was one and the same because of the fact that state fused every aspect of private lives in civil society. Be it, property, trade, society or man, various social forms were inherently political in the sense that state entirely subsumed civil society. Then, every social form inevitably had a political character. In other words, in the Hegelian conceptual framework, the universal incorporated the particular.
Erol Subaşi, 2019, Relinking the Social and the Political: Hegel, Marx and the Police as Socialisation of the State Power
The great disdain for the bourgeois character of emergent capitalist liberalism and the desire for restoring a cohesive and collectivist social order, is a central pillar of both socialism and fascism. Italian Fascist philosopher and politician Giovanni Gentile used the term ‘Bourgeois Nation.’ The term referred to capitalist societies where the bourgeoisie, or the capitalist class, held the dominant economic and political power. Gentile was clear about the socialist origins of Italian Fascism.
Gentile had long since identified socialist values as elements inherent in Fascism since its conception. He recognized some of his own inspiration in the early writings of Marx—when Marx was largely under the direct influence of Hegel. Toward the end of his life, Gentile acknowledged the socialist origins of Fascism when he identified Italian communists as “impatient corporativists” who failed to understand the logical and “dialectical” development of an historic social and philosophical idea.
Mussolini's Intellectuals: Fascist Social and Political Thought, James Gregor, 2005
Georges Sorel, was a French philosopher and an unconventional Marxist. Sorel had a significant influence on the development of Italian Fascism. His ideas about the importance of action and will, as well as his belief in the power of myth and symbolism, were influential in shaping the Italian Fascist movement. Sorel's concept of the "myth of revolution," which emphasized the importance of creating a new, heroic national identity, resonated with many Italian nationalists who were looking for a way to unify the country and assert its power on the world stage. Sorel's ideas were also influential in the development of the Fascist party's emphasis on militarism, the cult of the leader, and the importance of the nation above all else.
Mussolini, who was the leader of the National Fascist Party and later the Prime Minister of Italy, drew heavily from Sorel's ideas. Mussolini had read and admired Sorel's work and even met him in person before coming to power. He used Sorel's ideas of revolutionary myth-making to craft a narrative of national renewal and rejuvenation, which was a central component of fascist ideology.
Georges Sorel's ideological affiliations with Benito Mussolini are no longer questioned today. There is considerable literature on the Sorelian origins of fascist political mythology, and the disputes are more about how much was done with the blessing of the aging and grave master, and how much the fascists usurped his legacy without his knowledge or consent (Roth 30–45; Talmon 451–474; Desmeaux 488–505). The very concept of fascism, not as a precise rationalist ideology, but as a political myth, i.e. a set of symbols, feelings, sentiments and slogans, has Sorelian origins.
Georges Sorel and the birth of the fascist political myth, Adam Wielomski, 2021
Sorelism is an ideology that incorporates elements of socialism, nationalism, and fascism. It emphasizes the need for a revolutionary vanguard to overthrow capitalist society and replace it with a socialist order. The focus is on the working class as the driving force behind this revolution and the rejection of parliamentary democracy as a means of achieving change. Does this sound familiar? It is no coincidence, Sergio Panunzio, another theorist of Italian fascism, spelled it out and said that syndicalism is the historical development of Marxism.
Mussolini soon became one of the best-known leaders of Italian socialism. A charismatic personality, at once an intellectual and an outstanding leader, he quickly rose in importance. From being a provincial socialist leader, he became the head of the revolutionary Left of the Socialist party and the editor of Avanti!
The Birth of Fascist Ideology, Zeev Sternhell
Prior to Benito Mussolini’s role as the leader of the Italian Fascists, he was a Marxist. From 1912, Mussolini was editor of the Italian socialist journal Avanti. The intellectual connections Mussolini made as a socialist served him well in creating the Italian Fascist movement.
Mussolini, an acknowledged Marxist thinker, had been both the intellectual and political leader of the Italian Socialist Party prior to the First World War—and collected around himself some of Italian Marxism’s most competent theoreticians.
Mussolini's Intellectuals: Fascist Social and Political Though, James Gregor, 2005
The network Mussolini formed and the use he made of Marxist ideologues is in no doubt.
Hitler, Marx and the Nazis
The connection between Nazism and Marxism is more tenuous, but still there. Just as fascism is like socialism but not the same as socialism, Nazism is not fascism — Nazism focuses on race, while fascism focuses on nation.
Contemporary socialists try and distance themselves from fascism, but when fascism was in the ascent, socialists willingly collaborated with fascists, because they were travelers on similar paths. Of course there is denial around this, but the history cannot be changed.
As Augusto Zimmermann points out, quoting American author Richard Pipes, the German Communists (KPD) collaborated with the Nazis:
Because of ideological similarities the German Communists were happily prepared to faithfully collaborate with the Nazis against the Weimar Republic. The Nazis were greatly assisted by the Communists when the latter refused to make common cause with the Social Democrats.
Augusto Zimmermann, Quadrant Online
With the rise of fascism in Italy, the story is similar, the socialist General Confederation of Labor (CGIL) also collaborated with Mussolini. Such a pattern is no surprise when socialism and fascism share common ideological goals. The Soviet Union was recognised by Italy in 1924, the first Western nation to do so — fascist Italy then became a major trading partner.
Hitler was clear about the influence of Marxism in forming the Nazi party doctrine, and it seems that the rhetoric was compelling enough for the communists of the time.
Nazism, unlike fascism, was very much in the form of a centralised state power with a bureaucracy controlling production and distribution of wealth, and with a vanguard political party in power. In contrast fascism is corporatist, and of the form of socialism where the private vs public axis is more weakly tilted towards public ownership.
Anyone who doubts the economic socialism of the Nazis should read their literature:
In 1920 Adolf Hitler and Anton Drexler published the 25 Points Manifesto, a document which described their ‘unalterable and eternal’ objectives. It was the first and only manifesto of the party.107 Apart from the well-known denunciation of the Versailles Treaty and its anti-Semitism, the manifesto also supported the ‘expropriation of land without compensation, nationalisation of industry, abolition of market-based lending, confiscation of income unearned by work’ and so on.108
The intellectual forerunners of Nazism were socialists who firmly believed that capitalism favoured the ‘unproductive classes’ of industrialists at the expense of the ‘honest working man’. These intellectuals believed that capitalism should be eroded as it lowered the birth rate of the working class. National Socialism was therefore founded on the view that those on equal economic footing would allow for biological talent and ability to prevail.109
Heath Harley-Bellemore, National Socialism And Marxism: A Comparative Legal Analysis
None of the above is to say that fascism is equivalent to Marxism — they certainly are not equivalents. Nevertheless, the traits shared and the common intellectual heritage make them close in ideological form and close enough that there was collaboration. There is no doubt that fascism derived from Marxism, preserving many of the main themes while adding and removing others.
Other than the above similarities, what specifically marks the fascists as socialists?
redistribution of wealth through welfare programs
the influence of unions over production
the central planning of the economy
Under the fascist regime, social welfare schemes were not abolished and left to private enterprise, but instead centralised under state control. Wealth was therefore socialised through public policy.
In 1933, the INFPS (National Fascist Institute of Social Security), which managed all compulsory insurances, was created in place of the National Fund of Social Insurances. In 1935 government enacted a unique law of social security concerning the Refinement and coordination of social security legislation that disciplined the fragmented social security system of elders and disable people, unemployment, tuberculosis and pregnancy.
Social Security Legislation in Italy During Fascism, Stefano Vinci
Although the Italian fascists were distinct from the socialist because of their corporatism — they did not abolish private ownership over industry, but sought instead to influence it. However, unions, although also under the influence of the state, still played a part in the politics and economics and were able to act in the interests of their workers.
As it is well documented in Toniolo and Piva (1988), the Italian official trade unions made work sharing one of the pillars of their action in the 1930s. As shown by Tattara and Toniolo (1976), the average working day in manufacturing fell from 7 hours and 17 minutes in 1929, to 6 hours and 43 minutes in 1932. The 11th October 1934 agreement signed by the trade union and Confindustria introduced the forty hours working week. It was then established by law on 26th October 1937.
Industrial Policy And Productivity Growth in Fascist Italy, Ferdinando Giugliano
While the fascist regime in Italy was corporatist, the agenda was still that the state should control industry in the national interest and so nationalisation of Italian industry was expansive, being second only to the Soviet Union. Those that argue that this was not “real socialism”, are only really making the case that the fascists didn’t depart all the way from private ownership of the means of production — but the fascists had already rejected this idea, not because they were capitalists, but because they believed that full expropriation of the means of production would damage the national interest.
By 1939, Fascist Italy attained the highest rate of state ownership of an economy in the world other than the Soviet Union, where the Italian state "controlled over four-fifths of Italy's shipping and shipbuilding, three-quarters of its pig iron production and almost half that of steel".
Economy of fascist Italy, Wikipedia
Today’s socialists in public life are very much aligned with the above programs of government run welfarism, tripartisan state-union-business collaborations and the nationalisation of key industries. If fascism fell from the tree of socialism, it didn’t fall very far.