Debate: Is Fascism truly right-wing?

Fascism is considered one of the most controversial and difficult to classify out of all the many twentieth century-ideologies--except Peronism, National-Bolshevism and such Third Positionists. The Left thinks that it's right-wing, but the Right says the opposite thing. I encourage you to say your opinion on this subject. Before the debate starts, I would like to say that Right-Wingers are people who "hold that certain social orders and hierarchies are inevitable, normal or desirable", so for me it's mainly a cultural and not an economical ideology, which is the main theme of the Conservapedia entry on the subject. So, there are still many things to discuss about the ideological orientation of Fascism. Of course, you can also use other definitions in the debate. Also i'll remember that the Fascism that i'm dealing with is the Italian and maybe the Slovakian and Romanian versions, and not Nazism. If people show interest writing and discussing their opinions, i'll say what I think about the problem. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tsar Nicolay (talk)

• Mussolini was originally a far-left Marxist socialist, and he remained on the Left as a fascist. The only thing that changed is that his primary loyalty/goal switched from an international workers' revolution to an Italian workers' revolution. In other words, he abandoned the traditional Marxist internationalism/globalism for Italian nationalism. Everything else in his ideology remained the same.

Regarding the definition of what it means to be a right-winger/conservative, CP's "Conservative" article is very helpful. Unlike fascism, a totalitarian ideology which seeks to destroy tradition and the past, conservatism advocates for freedom/liberty, rooted firstly in the Bible and secondly in the philosophy of Locke and the founding fathers, who also were inspired by the Bible. --1990'sguy (talk) 17:17, 27 June 2019 (EDT)

The more important question, I think, is "Is conservatism truely right wing?". We know for certain conservatism isn't left wing, but I see no rule anywhere that means I must answer as yes. Reagan said in his most important speech: "You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down — up to a man’s age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism".

It seems to me plainly clear. Conservatism is not right wing. Conservatism is "up". So who qualifies as "down"? Communism and Fascism. That's why its so hard for most of us to find any differences between those two. Progressingamerica (talk) 21:32, 27 June 2019 (EDT)

We should also be wary of relying too much on terminology. People often use the same terms even when they're talking about entirely different things, and terms also can change their meaning over time. By "conservatism" or "right-wing," we mean "the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order," as you worded it -- the philosophy advocated by John Locke and the founding fathers and inspired by biblical teachings. --1990'sguy (talk) 21:48, 27 June 2019 (EDT)

By the way, I think this political spectrum chart is a good alternative to the traditional (and problematic) left-right spectrum map. --1990'sguy (talk) 21:50, 27 June 2019 (EDT)

Thanks to all for writing here. As a new user, I loved to see that skilled contributors have considered interesting the question I launched. Now, as I have said, I will reply to some of your answers with my opinion. Well, personally I believe that this ideology is right-wing. I think that because the Right--in it's common understanding--is pro-traditional values. Contrarily to what many people would say, Fascism in its Italian understanding also is. To prove it, let's see what is commonly protected and defended by the Right. Those things are, above all, 1) religion, 2)family, 3)law & order, 4) the military and other important services and 5)national culture & identity. Well, let's see it point-by-point. First of all, despite Mussolini, the Quadrumvir and army general De Bono, the Futurist writer Marinetti and the ideologist Gentile were Fascist Atheists and the proto-Fascist writer D'Annunzio was a Deist, the Quadrumvir Balbo, the Foreign Minister and nobleman Ciano, the Futurist writer Papini and the Conservative politician Preziosi were Roman Catholics who chose Fascism and became its important defenders. Also there was support from the parties ANI, CN and UN and a Concordat signed in 1929 which is still partly valid to this day. The images of Christ put in every school and the party banners blessed by clergymen served as examples to the end of the anticlericalism which was common after 1870. Also the Pope supported intervention in Spain and in the colonies and the fight of Bolshevism by other ways. The regime insisted that its measures against Jews were based in medieval Catholicism, but when the Church opposed that, the Nazis noted that Italian soldiers were influenced by it. The economic system known as Corporatism was--at least theorically--influenced by the papal documents "Rerum Novarum" and "Quadragesimo Anno". Of course, there also was anticlericalism, but it was much weaker than in other totalitarian states. Talking about the family, the party supported marriage, chastity between the youth and fought prostitution. In the cases of law and order, there were a strong police and some secret services which opposed the Mafia and the Camorra. The military played a very important role in the society. The national culture was considered one of the pillars of Fascism, which was promoted by nostalgy towards the Roman Empire, the Renaissance and the Risorgimento. The regime told Italians they had to be proud of their "Mediterranity" and be aware of cultural influences from France, Great Britain and other places, initially even Germany. If we study carefully these arguments, we will see that there is nothing of "destroying tradition and past" or at least not in the Nazi or Soviet way. So, we have that Fascism is really right-wing. But one of the repliers suggested: what if there is no Right and Left? I,ve seen the alternative political organisation and I can interpret is as a division between Statism and healthy--in comparison to Hedonism--Individualism, the latter of which would be Cnservative. That might be a plausible division, but we do not have any reasons to call the Statists "Left" and the Individualist "Right", because the Right initially was not an ideology of liberty, but rather one of control and authority. Finally, I'll say that the "up" and "down" points of view are somewhat subjective. User-Tsar Nicolay, 29/6/19

Adding some thing, it is also interesting to see that modern parties such as Democracia Nacional in Spain and Forza Nuova in Italy, which are called Neofascists both by their opponents and by themselves, have a very good point in their electoral programs.It is about restoring the Christian morality in the society, somewhat like moderate Conservatives. It is important as well to see that the very Leftist in economics and very badly portrayed in cinema Italian Social Republic deliberately chosed Catholicism as nothing less than its state religion, despite it didn't need support from mainstrean Rightists any more. But I'm writing this mainly because I want to talk more about the Left-Right spectrum. Okay, I've read some CP articles on the subject and there's a tendency to see unrelated phenomena--from Antisemitism and Totalitarianism to Progressism and Socialism--as characteristics of the Left, while almost every good thing in the world is called Rightist and Conservative. Well, I personally think that it's not necessarily all like that in politics. For me, the nation is the key to the political spectrum. The Right is commonly understood as supporting tradition, such as the national culture, whilst in the Left there is an idea of denying the existence of any serious ethnic and cultural differences between men and using this denial to call any nationalist politics outdated and senseless. The effects of this are Globalism and Individualism, the latter because in a worldview which recognizes no groups and valid identifications between mankind and the self it becames increasingly importat, even giving way to Hedonism and Nihilism. This denial is good because it commonly prevents false identifications with the race--between them are only anthropological and no cultural differences, unlike the nations -- but it also can cause a decline in good values including religiosity, since many Western nations have Christianity as crucial for their identity and culture. Having said this, scientific ("serious") Antisemitism specifically or Racism generally is more characteristic to a historical era approximately between 1845 and 1945, during which it affected both the Left (Stalin or Sorel) and the Right (Gobineau or Churchill, who is said of having believed in racial supremacy). It was more or less as we believe today that the Earth is round or something like that. So it is not always a Leftist position, but instead is easier to be embraced by those who believe in nations (Right) in a wrong way (Supremacism). About Totalitarianism, it can be both. It is right-wing if it is installed in the name of the nation and the defence against a cultural and moral decay, but it is left-wing if considered a way to create a progressive utopia based on social class equality. The idea itself is probably neutral, as is its counterpart, the freedom defended by liberalism/libertarianism. But that social and political freedom may be probably left-leaning, because the Left was created to fight the reactionary governments of the 18th and 19th centuries, which considerably authoritarian, even in those nations called republics or constitutional monarchies. For example, there where oligarchical governments in Early Modern Netherlands or in Venice under the Doges. There also were Liberal secret societies who told tales about utopias and wished to have a nation of free, equal and brotherly people. The Right, in turn, was intended to confront these parties wishing change. The Right was called "counter-revolutionary", "reactionary" and, of course, "Conservative", because they wanted to conserve the status quo. So, the idea of a left-wing government being always authoritary and the right-wing being benevolent is more an actual phenomena. According to that idea, would Horty, Salazar, Franco or Pinochet be Leftists? They wouldn't, despite the only thing that tells apart them from Fascism is the less power given to the ruling party -- not in Spain and Portugal --, the lack of imperialism --not in Hungary--, the less charisma of the leader --who often had a personality cult despite that-- and the abscense of racism --which wasn't even present in Italy until around 1938--. They had the police state, they had the militarism, they had the traditionalism and the nationalism, and Franco and Salazar even had the corporate economics and the roman salute until well into the seventies. So the Right also can be authoritarian. Authoritarian, but not totalitarian, because even the Mussolini regime wasn't totalitarian. The academic Robert Paxton tells in his book Anatomy of Fascism the story of an anti-government journalist who was imprisoned for that sort of activities but released very soon and even allowed to continue writing, only with the advertence that he will be watched by the secret police. Hitler or Stalin would have him killed. The tendence to big government appeared in the Left very early, but in the Right it has been less present recently. The Leftists blame it for all the evil of the twentieth century and use this to drive the public opinion away from the Right by calling it intrinsecally Authoritarian, to the point of saying that Stalin was right-wing because of his dictatorship. This isn't different from calling Mussolini left-wing and thinking that the Left is actually totalitarian. No; this system can be used by both sides, and the Right is not always seeking to protect liberty from the tyrannical Left, because both ideologies have supported both positions throughout history. Now the Left is ruling in places like the west of the European Union, where it attempts to destroy all religion, morality and good culture, but this is fortunately opposed by the Right. Like in the 1790-s France or in the twentieth century, this "progressive" ideas are driven to an extreme, not by endangering private property and physical well-being, but by moving the pillars of any organised society, such as the faith, the nation and the gender. But if bad ideas can be driven to an extreme, so do the good ones. The love for one's fatherland in the face of the advancing decay caused by the Left drove many Italians to join Hitler, who wasn't a Conservative, but rather a charlatan. As a conclusion of this text, I'll say that I see no objective reasons to consider the Right as always in search for real political freedom, to deny the existence of far-right groups and their allegiance to the Right and to consider Fascism a left-leaning ideology. The last thing is because the only serious argument for that is relating economic corporatism with Socialism, but that are economics and not cultural and social politics, while according to them it's a traditionalist, centralist (the historical Right of the early nineteenth century advocated for loyalty to the royal power in all the regions of a country) and sometimes even religiously Conservative (for instance in Romania and Slovakia, where it was even called clerical fascism) ideology. Personally I think that cultural and social issues are more important than economics, and this proves the point of view according to which it is right-wing. Really, I know where this ideas of grouping Fascism with Bolshevism came from. There was an Austrian monarchist called Erich von Kuenhelt-Leddin, who said that Liberalism, Communism and Fascism are the same because they preferred the group or the crowd to the individual with his rights. This has a point, specially if having an elitist worldview, but the difference is that Mussolini wasn't happy to see many common people in his party about the end of the 1920-s, and preferred to have the party cleaned of opportunists and vulgar men. By the other hand, present-day Rightists are usually Populist, and that is almost the same "rule of the crowd". The crowds can assist both forms of politics, where the ideas are more important than the practic part. This defence of individual freedom is more common of the centre, both Left and Right, and there are no reasons to say that those moderate are always on the Right, and those radical are always on the Left. User-Tsar Nicolay, 30/6/2019