Fascism - it's not what you think.
The word fascism is tossed around these days under the pretense that it is derived from right wing ideology, yet that couldn't be further from the truth. Fascism may have differed from contemporary communism (as practiced under Joseph Stalin) by its protection of business and landowning elites and its preservation of class systems, but it arose from very left leaning Socialist ideology. Adolf Hitler of Germany and Benito Mussolini of Italy are often portrayed as "right wingers" in terms of their political leanings, but in reality they both grew up entrenched in Socialist ideology.

From the very beginning of Adolf Hitler's political career he seemed very much destined to become a leader in the National Socialist movement sweeping germany. In 1919 he became actively involved in promoting Anton Drexler's form of strong government, non Jewish form of Socialism. He became the 55th party member of the German Workers' Party (DAP) in Sept.12th, 1919, which was subsequently changed to Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party – NSDAP) shortly thereafter. From that point on his meteoric rise to power, and ultimate role as the leader of the NSDAP (commonly known as the Nazi Party) that brought about the Third Reich. Once he was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933, the Nazi Party began to eliminate all political opposition and consolidate their power.

Immediately after Hitler had achieved full control over the legislative and executive branches of government, he and his political allies began to suppress the remaining political opposition.The German Labour Front was formed as an umbrella organisation to represent all workers, administrators, and company owners, thus reflecting the concept of national socialism in the spirit of Hitler's Volksgemeinschaft (German racial community; literally, "people's community". On 14 July 1933, the NSDAP was declared the only legal political party in Germany, and Hitler went straight to work installing key figures in every government position to gain total control of every aspect of German education, law enforcement, society, trade, commerce, and the military.

While their paths to power may have been slightly different, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler shared a very similar Socialist outlook in terms of politics. Mussolini's early political views were heavily influenced by his father, Alessandro Mussolini, a revolutionary socialist who idolized 19th century Italian nationalist figures with humanist tendencies such as Carlo Pisacane, Giuseppe Mazzini, and Giuseppe Garibaldi. Mussolini became active in the Italian socialist movement in Switzerland, working for the paper L'Avvenire del Lavoratore, organizing meetings, giving speeches to workers and serving as secretary of the Italian workers' union in Lausanne as well. During this time, he also published Il Trentino veduto da un Socialista (Trentino as seen by a Socialist).

By now, he was considered to be one of Italy's most prominent Socialists, but his reversal of opinion regarding participation in World War 1 left him at odds with some of the anti-war figures in the Socialist Party, which eventually led to his expulsion. Not to be deterred or undermined by his ousting of the Italian Socialist Party, Mussolini garnered financial support from French Socialists in order to to create the publication Il Popolo d'Italia to convince socialists and revolutionaries to support the war. It was at this point that he began to form a whole new political doctrine that suited his more interventionist type of Italian Socialism. Fascism, as we call it today, was born of National Socialist sentiment, but with the coinciding rise in Communism to the East, a whole new form of social control was invented in order to stand apart, and to show a clear distinction from the rest.
CL