But at Least the Trains Ran on Time...

Jonathan's post arguing that fascism was not a true ideology until historians made it one is, in my view, very off base. For one, I think he underestimates the novelty of the fascist movement. Several aspects of fascism separate it from previous authoritarian systems, such as its fundamental connection to mass politics. Totalitarianism arose out of an atomized and terrified society where class and social distinctions had been wiped clean by the First World War. Fascism was not a class movement--it was factional, but it drew support from all corners of Italian society. A second differentiating factor was its new idea of relations between rulers and the ruled. Absolutism had to recognize the aristocracy as a lesser or greater partner in government. Liberal statists nominally presented themselves as popular servants and sought to reconcile competing social interests. Fascism, as its name implies, believed in the ultimate 'binding' of all members of society. The state and the people would be unified in the service of a common ideal--that of national greatness and the acquisition of power.

Mussolini called expansion and a larger sense of struggle 'an essential manifestation of vitality' by the State. The rhetoric of fascism was communal, emphasizing the greater unity of a people and the expression of this unity through the State. Contrary to what Jonathan asserts, fascism necessitated such an ideology before it could take hold in Italy else it could not have achieved the victory it did. Only once the regime had cemented its position could ideology be subverted to the greater telos of totalitarianism--the perpetuation of the regime for its own sake.