What is fascism?
Fascism is one of the most charged and misunderstood political terms of the 20th and 21st centuries. Often used as an insult in modern discourse, its true definition is far more complex, and historically dangerous. At its core, fascism is a far-left, authoritarian ultranationalist political ideology that seeks to unify a nation through centralised control, dictatorial leadership, suppression of dissent, and the aggressive promotion of a singular cultural or national identity.
Emerging in the aftermath of World War I, fascism gained momentum in countries facing political instability, economic hardship, and deep societal divisions. Leaders like Benito Mussolini in Italy and Adolf Hitler in Germany exploited national disillusionment, offering visions of restored greatness, social order, and military strength. Fascist regimes are characterised by their rejection of democracy, disdain for political pluralism, glorification of violence, and a belief that the state is more important than the individual. In practice, fascism has led to some of the most catastrophic and oppressive periods in human history.
Where does fascism come from?
Most people with even a passing interest in political theory can name the leading thinkers behind the dominant ideologies of the last two centuries. Adam Smith is universally associated with capitalism. Karl Marx remains the face of communism. But when it comes to fascism, the picture is much blurrier. Ask the average person who the philosopher behind fascism was, and you’re likely to get blank stares. That’s no accident. The name Giovanni Gentile has been systematically omitted from mainstream political discourse, because to understand Gentile’s influence is to confront the uncomfortable intellectual roots of fascism itself.
Gentile, an Italian philosopher, was the key architect of fascist ideology and a close collaborator of Benito Mussolini. He rejected liberal democracy as overly individualistic, selfish, and weak. In Gentile’s view, true democracy wasn’t about maximizing individual freedom—it was about complete identification with the state. The citizen’s highest purpose was to surrender personal interests for the collective will. The state, in his model, was not just an administrative structure—it was a spiritual and moral force that gave life meaning.
This is the core of what Gentile called “Actualism”—a belief that individuals only find real fulfillment when they act through the state. Much like Karl Marx envisioned a classless society where people derived meaning through communal labor, Gentile imagined a nation where people gained purpose through their service to the state. In both ideologies, individual liberty was subordinated to a collective ideal. But where Marx rallied workers against the bourgeois class, Gentile rallied citizens around the power of the nation.
It’s no coincidence that Gentile’s influence made its way into fascist Italy and later resonated with authoritarian movements across Europe. Nor is it surprising to see echoes of his thought in modern political rhetoric, such as the “the government is the only thing we all belong to” theme of the 2012 Democratic National Convention—a message rooted more in collectivist philosophy than classical liberalism. Understanding Gentile’s role helps expose how fascism was never just thuggery—it was an ideology with deep intellectual ambitions, rooted in a belief that the state should be the soul of the people.
Hitler and Mussolini
While Giovanni Gentile provided the intellectual scaffolding for fascism, it was Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler who brought the ideology to life. Their regimes in Italy and Germany, respectively, became the most infamous examples of fascism in action—totalitarian systems built on collectivist control, state supremacy, and militarized nationalism.
What many people forget—or never learn—is that both Mussolini and Hitler started out as socialists. Mussolini was a prominent member of the Italian Socialist Party before founding the National Fascist Party in 1919. Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) carried the label “socialist” in its name, and early Nazi rhetoric included economic reforms aimed at workers and critiques of capitalism. Both leaders drew heavily on leftist economic themes—central planning, state intervention, and the rejection of laissez-faire liberalism.
But where traditional Marxist socialism sought to abolish class distinctions and redistribute wealth along class lines, fascism redirected that revolutionary energy toward national identity and unity. Mussolini and Hitler both rejected class conflict, instead demanding absolute unity behind the state. The fascist ideal wasn’t the dictatorship of the proletariat—it was the dictatorship of the nation.
In this sense, fascism became a collectivist ideology that replaced class with nation, and internationalism with nationalism. It kept the mechanisms of socialism—centralized control, state-managed economies, mass propaganda—but aimed them at different goals. Gentile’s ideas, and the policies of Mussolini and Hitler, all point to the same philosophical foundation: the subordination of the individual to a greater collective, enforced by an all-powerful state.
In practice, this meant totalitarian control. Fascist regimes abolished political pluralism, crushed dissent, censored the press, and demanded absolute loyalty. Political opponents—particularly communists and socialists—were among the first to be arrested, exiled, or killed. Yet even as fascists persecuted the left, they preserved many of its tools: the centralization of power, economic planning, and mass mobilization of the populace.
Fascism, then, is not the opposite of socialism—it is an ideological cousin. Both ideologies reject individual liberty in favor of a collective vision. Both believe in reshaping society through force and control. Where they differ is in what they worship: socialism glorifies the worker; fascism glorifies the nation. But both demand your obedience.
So is fascism on the right or the left?
To understand where fascism belongs on the political spectrum, you have to start at its intellectual roots. And that root is Giovanni Gentile, a man who didn’t hide his ideological alignment. Gentile was a proud socialist who believed that Marx’s class-based collectivism, while visionary, lacked the unifying glue that could bind an entire nation. Gentile’s answer? Substitute class with nation—create a collective identity so strong, so all-encompassing, that the individual disappears into it. He called it “True Democracy,” where individuals submit willingly to the authority of the state. Not for liberty. Not for choice. But for unity and purpose.
This wasn’t a mutation of right-wing liberalism. This was socialism reimagined through the lens of nationalism. Gentile himself said so. The similarities are not accidental—they are foundational. Fascism uses the same operating system as socialism: centralized power, planned economies, suppression of dissent, mass mobilization, and the elevation of the collective above the individual. The only difference is the target of devotion: socialism points to class; fascism points to the state.
This is exactly how fascism came to power in Italy and Germany. Mussolini didn’t emerge from the aristocracy or the boardrooms of multinational corporations—he came from the Italian Socialist Party. Hitler’s early appeal had just as much to do with promises to protect workers and nationalize industries as it did with nationalist propaganda. Their revolutions were not driven by free market capitalism or liberal conservatism—they were rooted in authoritarian collectivism, the very lifeblood of left-wing ideology taken to its most extreme.
And yet, today, fascism has been dressed up in a different costume.
Starting in the 1970s, fascism underwent one of the most successful ideological rebrands in modern history. It went from being understood as a form of totalitarian socialism to being portrayed as the far end of the right-wing spectrum. Why? Because neo-Nazis and hate groups began using its symbols, and because labeling your opponents as “fascist” became an easy way to shut down debate. It’s a term that stings. It evokes fear. And in modern politics, it has been weaponized.
It’s why every Republican presidential candidate since Reagan has at some point been called a fascist. It’s why talk show hosts, Twitter pundits, and political commentators toss the label around as casually as calling someone “out of touch.” But this rebranding—intentional or not—obscures the real origins of the ideology.
When you strip away the emotional charge and the historical revisionism, one question remains: What does fascism actually advocate? What does it look like in practice?
Fascism advocates for:
- Total submission of the individual to the collective
- State control over the economy and production
- Suppression of dissent, especially speech, religion, and political opposition
- A ruling elite or strongman positioned as the will of the people
- Glorification of the state and militarized national unity
None of these principles align with classical liberalism or conservative thought. They align with state socialism—just under a different banner.
The uncomfortable truth is that fascism isn’t the opposite of socialism. It’s a variation of it. A cousin. A sibling. A different flavor of the same authoritarian collectivism that sees people not as individuals, but as tools to be molded for a vision imposed from above.
To understand this is not to excuse the horrors committed under fascist regimes. It is to understand what allowed those horrors to happen in the first place. And if we can’t be honest about where fascism comes from, we’ll never be equipped to recognize it when it starts to rise again.
Fascism is a leftist ideology in both its theory and its practice. And it’s time we started saying that out loud.
