This is an interesting topic. After what–60 years or so?–of “Fascist” equalling evil, it is worth noting that Fascism in its day had its advocates, as indeed Communism/Leninism does to this very day. To the point, the two are hard to distinguish, both in the intellectual mediocrity of their exponents, and the practical effects of the implementation of their ideas.
Look at this link. Hugh S. Johnson, Time Magazine Man of the Year for 1933. The reason I looked this up is that I read Benito Mussollini was under serious consideration for this “honor” that year.
In 1933 Roosevelt appointed Johnson to administer the National Recovery Administration (NRA). One author claims Johnson looked on Italian Fascist corporativism as a kind of model.[15] He distributed copies of a fascist tract called “The Corporate State” by one of Mussolini’s favorite economists, including giving one to Labor Secretary Frances Perkins and asking her give copies to her cabinet
Here is the link, which won’t post right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Samuel_Johnson
Or consider this, from the book “The Philosophy of Fascism”, by Marco Palmieri (1936):
Economic initiatives cannot be left to the arbitrary decisions of private, individual interests. Open competition, if not wisely [!] directed and restricted, actually destroys wealth instead of creating it. . . The proper function of the State in the Fascist system is that of supervising, regulating and arbitrating the relationships of capital and labor, employers and employees, individuals and associations, private interests and national interests . . .More important than the production of wealth is its right distribution, distribution which must benefit in the best possible way all the classes of the nation, hence the nation itself. Private wealth belongs not only to the individual, but, in a symbolic sense, to the State as well.
Think about that, then watch this Michael Moore video.
Moore–and his fellow travellers–are in my view formally and with no exaggeration Fascists.
I will add that Mussollini was previously a Communist, in my understanding. He seems to have abandoned that not out of some principled sympathy for human rights, but rather because mythically it is hard to live without a nation or identity.
Fascism is simply Communism which retains a national sense of self. Both glorify imperialism (Communists call it “liberation”, since lying is what they do best); both see the role of the State as managing all interpersonal relations, economically and socially; and both see an autocratic leader or elite–who are “enlightened”–running the show forever.