(Bruce Walker) 互為朋友的法西斯和布爾什維克

(Bruce Walker)   Fascists and Bolsheviks as friends

https://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0208/0208fasbol.htm

(譯文)

如果納粹和布爾什維克彼此是朋友和敵人的次數相當，那麽法西斯和布爾什維克的關係究竟如何呢？左派的偽概念裏很少提到“納粹”，而是“法西斯”，而且這些“法西斯”都是布爾什維克的死敵，在理念上，“法西斯主義”和馬克思主義處在完全相反的兩級，等等。

這是錯的。貝尼托-墨索裏尼（Benito Mussolini）是以馬克思主義者的身份開始政治生涯的，而且它還是個暴力派、革命派馬克思主義者。墨索裏尼不但是意大利左派頭領，而且他還是世界上最重要的共產黨人之一。1914年，墨索裏尼組織了“紅色周”，旨在發動一場針對腐敗資本主義世界的暴力革命。墨索裏尼經常被稱為“Duce”，意思是“領袖”－－相當於德語的“Fuhrer”，俄語的“Vozd”－－而且通常認為是法西斯給了他這個稱呼。這也是錯的。這個綽號是馬克思主義者在一次慶祝他出獄的宴會上給他起的，之前他因抗議“帝國主義”意大利對利比亞的戰爭被捕，在那次出獄宴會上，一個社會主義老戰士說：“貝尼托，從今天起，你不但是羅馬涅地區（Romagna）社會主義者的代表，而且是意大利全體革命派社會主義者的領袖（Duce）！”

這個作為馬克思主義者的墨索裏尼是《前進！》（Avanti!）的編輯，《前進！》是意大利也是世界一本主要的馬克思主義期刊。盡管大部分墨索裏尼傳記都會涉及他一生中很長時期與這本馬克思主義期刊的關係，但幾乎沒人提到同一時期他還是意大利馬克思主義者的知識分子月刊《烏托邦》（Utopia）的編輯。墨索裏尼沒有退出馬克思主義。他被“意大利社會主義黨”（Italian Socialist Party）驅逐，是因為在第一次世界大戰中，他支持意大利加入英法俄聯盟反對德國-奧匈帝國一方。盡管曆史學家可以、而且已經爭辯說這象征著墨索裏尼向他們虛構出來的右派靠攏，而當時在左派當中，在支持還是反對戰爭才能幫助推動世界無產階級革命上存在嚴重的分歧。

實際上，墨索裏尼是跟從而不是領導意大利的極左派。Zeev Sternhell在《法西斯理念的誕生》（The Birth of Fascist Ideology）裏解釋說，在1914年8月19日，Alceste De Ambris在“米蘭工會主義聯盟”（Milanese Syndical Union，MSU）講台上攻擊中立立場，推動支持法國和英國。他把德國的行為比作反應，把法國的行動比作法國大革命。墨索裏尼這時放棄了中立態度，在 1914年11月發表了《Il Popolo d’Italia》，支持加入英法聯盟一方。當宣戰之後，墨索裏尼和其他革命派工會主義首領自願入伍。

即便在墨索裏尼之前，法西斯主義就是左派的革命工會主義，由左派裏的不同意見者創建。在墨索裏尼成為法西斯主義者之前，法西斯主義就是左派意識形態。當法西斯主義聯合成一場全國性運動以後，它屬於左派運動，而不是屬於右派。盡管墨索裏尼從馬克思主義分離出來，他並沒有與社會主義分離。他對馬克思主義的反對在於，馬克思和恩格斯都是德國人，馬克思主義被用來作為推動德國和俾斯麥政治的工具。

此外，工會主義（Syndicalism）不是在意大利、而是在法國發展起來的，它屬於左派，而不是右派。正如Roger H. Soltau在他1930年介紹法國政治的書中所說：“有一些社會主義人士不是工會主義者，也有一些工會主義者不投票給社會主義候選人，不過兩個黨的立場幾乎沒有什麽區別，都相信用革命方式摧毀資本主義社會，以及用無產階級的國際行動來徹底消滅政治分野。”這種友好關係直接影響了工會主義者（法西斯主義者的先鋒）和布爾什維克的關係：當布爾什維克軍事政權反對民主選舉產生的、推翻了沙皇政治的革命政府的時候，工會主義者很活躍的反對法國參與反對俄國布爾什維克。確實，工會主義者內部的衝突是城市裏的“紅色共產主義者”和鄉村的“綠色共產主義者”的衝突。法西斯主義者和布爾什維克的這種重疊關係一直持續到“俄國法西斯黨”（Russian Fascist Party）時期，該黨1930年代成立於中國哈爾濱；但是後來該黨首領Konstantin Rodzaevsky改信了斯大林主義，他說：“斯大林主義…是我們俄國的清除了極端、幻覺和錯誤的法西斯主義。”

托洛茨基支持墨索裏尼超過支持列寧

被斯大林認為太左的列昂-托洛茨基（Leon Trotsky）支持墨索裏尼的立場，即第一次世界大戰會催生馬克思主義革命，列寧也支持這個立場。很多後來成為法西斯主義者的意大利馬克思主義者，也支持墨索裏尼的這個立場，包括Sergio Panunzio，A.O. Olivetti，Roberto Michels，Paolo Orano。托洛茨基在聽說墨索裏尼被逐出社會主義黨之後說，意大利社會主義陣營失去了他們唯一的革命者。墨索裏尼沒有停止把自己看作左派。在被逐出意大利社會主義黨到1922年向羅馬進軍之間，墨索裏尼在1919年被稱為“意大利的列寧”，因為法西斯主義者以工人的名義占領工廠。詩人、飛行員、法西斯主義的民間英雄之一的Gabriele d’Annunzio曾說，他支持的法西斯主義是一種拉丁化的國家布爾什維克主義。1920年代，墨索裏尼表達了對列寧的仰慕，把蘇聯看作“斯拉夫法西斯主義”（Slav Fascism），同時共產國際主管布哈林（Comintern Chief Nicolay Bukharin）宣稱，法西斯黨比任何其他政黨都更吸收和應用俄國革命的經驗。在1926年的第六國際之前，法西斯主義都沒有被看作是一種和共產主義競爭的意識形態。墨索裏尼也說過，他以“法西斯主義戰友”的身份歡迎斯大林。法西斯主義者公開猜測是否斯大林正在變成法西斯主義者。

墨索裏尼之前的意大利總理Francesco Nitti在1927年的《布爾什維克主義，法西斯主義和民主》（Bolshevism, Fascism and Democracy）一書中寫道：“如果在意大利沒有了反對力量，法西斯主義會進一步演化成什麽呢？考慮到當前的流行潮流，墨索裏尼會變成共產主義者嗎？他會突然回到原來的教義嗎？”在同一本書裏，Nitti還寫道：“這兩者之間幾乎沒有區別，在某種程度上，法西斯主義和布爾什維克主義是一回事。”他書裏一章的標題就是“布爾什維克主義和法西斯主義完全一樣”，這章的結論是：“在今天的意大利，人們對依附於莫斯科的共產主義者更容忍，超過對自由派（Liberals），民主派（democrats）和社會主義者的容忍。”Nitti並不是保守主義者，也不是右派政客，而他是一個受人尊敬的政治人物，也是法西斯主義的死敵，這使得他不得不逃離意大利。

牛津大學出版社1928年出版了哥倫比亞大學（Columbia University）Herbert Schneider教授的《建造法西斯國家》（Making the Fascist State）裏寫道，黑格爾信徒（Hegelian）和馬克思信徒可能很快會發現，工會主義是社會主義和法西斯主義的組合，他指出一些社會主義者已經開始修改自己的理論。Sherwood Eddy在1933年的《法西斯主義和布爾什維克主義》（Fascism and Bolshevism）寫道，法西斯的意大利和蘇維埃的俄國有很多一樣的地方。1928年，文學巨人、共產主義的辯護士蕭伯納（George Bernard Shaw）在《知識女性社會主義、資本主義、蘇維埃主義和法西斯主義指南》（The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism & Fascism）裏指出，共產主義和法西斯主義造成類似的改變，法西斯主義好過自由主義（Liberalism）。

作為馬克思主義的朋友的法西斯（不是納粹）

1922年法西斯主義工會的主要組織者是Edmondo Rossoni，他是佛羅倫薩大學（University of Florence）的教授，在他1936年的《在法西斯主義的斧頭之下》（Under the Axe of Fascism）一書中這樣描述墨索裏尼，他已經成為“極端左派的革命派社會主義者。他已經成為美國的‘世界工業工人革命工會’的軍事人物。”和 Nitti一樣，Rossoni在法西斯當政初期離開了意大利。與Rossoni相反，Kemechy是墨索裏尼的鐵杆支持者。在1930年出版的《Il Duce: The Life and Work of Benito Mussolini》裏，Kemechy怎麽說墨索裏尼呢？支持墨索裏尼和法西斯主義的Kemechy說的，和同一時期反對墨索裏尼也反對法西斯主義的人說的一樣。他寫道，墨索裏尼是個社會主義者，列寧主義者，革命派。

在向羅馬進軍之後墨索裏尼掌握權力，他就清晰傳達了和蘇聯建立友好關係的願望，動作比希特勒還快。在向羅馬進軍的1922年，Mussolini對眾議院（Chamber of Deputies）宣稱，意大利不需要害怕蘇聯。1931年，當時一名美國保守派共和黨參議員的兒子Alfred Bingham訪問了意大利和蘇聯，墨索裏尼對他說“法西斯主義和共產主義是一回事。”1938年，Dorothy Thompson說了幾乎相同的話，她認為共產主義和法西斯主義在意識形態上的爭奪是虛張聲勢，在政府形式上，法西斯主義和共產主義幾乎完全一樣。她接著指出，政府作為終極的好是黑格爾和馬克思發明的，法西斯主義直接繼承了這一點。著名的蘇聯作家高爾基（Maxim Gorky）離開蘇聯後，在法西斯的意大利度過了大部分的1920年代。後來回到蘇聯以後，高爾基在莫斯科得到一幢大房子和一個別墅。

法西斯意大利和蘇聯有很好的商業關係。不僅如此，法西斯意大利還是蘇聯的一個主要軍火供應國，特別是飛機和海軍船隻。1933年簽訂的蘇聯-意大利合約不僅僅是一個商業條約，而且是一個友好、互不侵犯和中立條約。法西斯的意大利和布爾什維克的蘇聯，不但在1933年簽訂了軍事、外交和經濟合約以限製希特勒，而且這個條約在兩個專製國家都被正麵宣傳。當布爾什維克和納粹簽訂了臭名昭著的宣布第二次世界大戰開始的互不侵犯條約的時候，蘇聯外長莫洛托夫（Molotov）最初宣稱布爾什維克和納粹製定的新合約與布爾什維克幾年前和意大利法西斯簽訂合約是一類事情，試圖以此降低民主國家的擔心。1937年 Freund寫道，意大利和蘇聯的關係令人滿意。Genevieve Tabouis在她1938年的《勒索和戰爭》（Blackmail or War）裏說，基於墨索裏尼對革命的過去的堅持，以及他對布爾什維克的同情，1934年他當即把蘇聯當作意大利的天然盟友。他盡一切可能對蘇聯政府說好話，甚至成功的讓他的代表在英國首相Ramsey MacDonald之前拜訪克裏姆林宮。整個意大利宣傳機器都讚美莫斯科，傳達對列寧的理念和手段的同情，而共產主義俄國建立初期，曾使用了非道德的壓製和暴力逼迫。後來的書裏，Tabouis指出墨索裏尼本人在《Popolo d’Italia》上匿名發表了一篇文章，宣稱要聯合兩個偉大的革命－－法西斯主義革命和布爾什維克革命。Rauschning也在1938年指出，“不久前法西斯主義的領袖自己也得出結論，斯大林主義代表著布爾什維克主義發展成了一種法西斯主義。”

在反對納粹上法西斯和布爾什維克的戰鬥友誼

法西斯和布爾什維克的友誼是互利性的。1934年7月15日在蘇聯官方報紙《消息報》（Izvestia）說，蘇聯和法西斯的意大利是好朋友。人們會說，專製體係之間的馬基雅維裏式的交易是很常見的。但幾百萬蘇聯人閱讀的出版物聲明“法西斯主義”不是布爾什維克主義的敵人有很大不同。

蘇聯和民主國家一道，正式譴責了法西斯對埃塞俄比亞（Ethiopia）的侵略。而在私下，布爾什維克的表現卻是另一個樣子。根據Henry Wolfe撰寫的《帝國主義蘇維埃》（The Imperial Soviets）一書，蘇聯給意大利軍隊提供了大量石油和戰爭資源，而且蘇聯和法西斯意大利的貿易關係非常協調。實際上，當法西斯意大利準備秋季對阿比西尼亞（Abyssinia）的戰爭的時候，40艘滿載希臘貨輪運載蘇聯的麥子、石油、煤、焦油、木材、大麥和燕麥支持墨索裏尼的戰爭機器。Eugene Lyons在1941年指出，“蘇聯一直賣給意大利石油和穀物，同時假裝反對意大利對俄賽俄比亞的入侵…”

一個有趣的事情是意大利內部的基督徒對阿比西尼亞戰爭的反應。一城一城的意大利人到教堂裏向瑪麗亞禱告停止這場戰爭，法西斯頭子不知該如何製止基督徒發自良知的呼求。在把國家利益置於理念之上的現實政治（Realpolitick）上，布爾什維克、納粹、法國人和英國人對法西斯帝國征服一個欠發展王國沒有不同的道德判斷。法西斯意大利內部的主流基督徒意見是堅持反對戰爭。盡管也有合作，天主教會因為法西斯主義的異教特質而強烈反對它，而隨著墨索裏尼和希特勒越走越近，天主教會對法西斯主義的敵意也逐漸加深。

在奧地利，法西斯主義準軍事組織Heimwehr，和布爾什維克準軍事組織Schutzbund在1930年代並肩戰鬥。前麵已經說過，法西斯和布爾什維克都反對德國和奧地利的聯合，它們一起阻止兩國的合並。法西斯和布爾什維克都對納粹的擴張方向表示憂慮－－向東和向南－－在這兩個專製國家和納粹達成交易之前，他們都盡力防止巴爾幹國家成為德國的勢力範圍。即便在法西斯名義上反對布爾什維克的時候，他們也是很不情願的，正如Dorothy Thompson指出，1937年10月意大利才簽了反共產國際條約。晚到1941年，Eugene Lyons還描述“法西斯意大利和蘇維埃俄國的緊密政治聯係。”

法西斯主義在1944年的最後日子

意大利加入德國一方參加第二次世界大戰之後，它的命運就和第三帝國連在一起了，也失去了顯示獨立的機會，除了抵抗納粹對猶太人的迫害，意大利比任何其他“盟國”和德國占領地區堅持的都長。但是當“大法西斯議事會”（Grand Fascist Council）趕走墨索裏尼，新意大利政府對德國宣戰之後，墨索裏尼得到了在殘留的被稱為Salo或意大利社會主義共和國的北意大利顯示自己真實意識形態的機會。這個政權的憲法是由共產主義者、列寧的朋友Nicola Bombacci起草的。1944年2月，意大利社會主義共和國簽署了“社會主義化企業的立法公告”，規定任何資產超過1百萬裏拉或雇員超過100人的私營企業，都要被一個管理人員和工人各占一半的委員會管理。這個公告出台之後，意大利社會主義共和國更加激烈的向左靠攏。1944年，墨索裏尼讚美斯大林，並說如果非要讓他選擇哪個國家統治歐洲，他選擇蘇聯。在墨索裏尼和他的情婦被殺死之後，共產主義者Bombacci也被處決，他最後的話是：“墨索裏尼萬歲！社會主義萬歲！”

法西斯主義，和布爾什維克主義、納粹主義和毛主義等其他左派意識形態一樣，隻對權力感興趣，不計代價，不擇手段。最終，“法西斯主義者”被證明更像布爾什維克，而不是納粹，盡管他們都相信權力超過其他任何東西。認為我們應該荒唐的相信墨索裏尼這個終生的馬克思主義者是馬克思主義的敵人，或者墨索裏尼這個厭惡希特勒和納粹種族政策的人推崇納粹德國（而實際上納粹和法西斯幾乎因為他們的不同而發生戰爭），是反思考的精英的無稽之談。

任何時候有人要把你稱為“法西斯”，提醒他們隻有意大利人曾經自稱“法西斯主義者”，而且他們把卡爾-馬克思當作先知。提醒他們法西斯主義的頭子在被行刑隊槍決的時候，讚美馬克思主義革命。然後告訴他們，這個家夥是個左派。

（原文）

If Nazis were allies as often as enemies of Bolsheviks, what was the relationship between Fascists and Bolsheviks?  The pseudo-cognition of Sinisterism seldom talks about Nazis at all, but rather about "fascists" and these "fascists" are the mortal enemies of Bolsheviks, the polar ideological opposite of Marxism, and so on.  This is not true.  Benito Mussolini did not begin his political career as just a Marxist, but as a violent, revolutionary Marxist.  Mussolini was not just a leading Leftist in Italy, he was one of the most important Communists in the world.  In 1914, Mussolini organized "Red Week" which was aimed at causing a violent revolution against the corrupt capitalist world.  Mussolini is often referred to by the name "Duce," which means "leader" - rather like Fuhrer in German or Vozd in Russian - and this is usually attributed to be a name given to him by the Fascists.  This is not true.  The moniker was given to him at a banquet given by Marxists after his release from prison for protesting the "imperialist" Italian war in Libya, at which one veteran socialist said:  "From today you, Benito, are not only the representative of Romagna Socialists, but the Duce of all revolutionary Socialists in Italy!" 

This Marxist Mussolini was the editor of Avanti! which was the leading Marxist periodical in Italy and one of the leading Marxists periodicals in the world.  Although most biographies of Mussolini touch on that long period of his life, few also mention that Mussolini was at the same time editor of Utopia, the monthly intellectual journal of Italian Marxists.  Mussolini did not quit being a Marxist.  He was expelled from the Italian Socialist Party because he supported Italy intervening on the side of the Allied Powers and against the Central Powers in the Great War.  Although historians can, and have, argued that this represented a movement by Mussolini to the mythical Right, there was a sharp fissure within the Left about whether or not it helped promote world proletariat revolution to support the war or to oppose it.

Actually, Mussolini was following, rather than leading, extreme Leftists in Italy. As Zeev Sternhell explains in The Birth of Fascist Ideology, on August 19, 1914, Alceste De Ambris, speaking from the platform of the Milanese Syndical Union (USM), attacked neutrality and urged going to the aid of France and Britain.  He equated the Germans with reaction, and equated the French with the French Revolution.   Mussolini dropped his neutrality at this time and began to publish Il Popolo d'Italia in November 1914, supporting entering the war on the allied side.  When war was declared, Mussolini and other revolutionary syndicalist leaders volunteered for duty."

Even prior to Mussolini, Fascism was revolutionary syndicalism of the Left formed by dissidents and nonconformists of the Left.  Fascism was Leftism before Mussolini was a Fascist.  When Fascism coalesced into a national movement, it was a movement of the Left, not the Right.  Although Mussolini did break from Marxism, he did not break with socialism.  His objection to Marxism was that both Marx and Engels were Germans and that Marxism was a tool used to advance German and Bismarckian politics. 

Moreover, Syndicalism did not develop in Italy, but in France, and it was a movement of the Left, not of the Right.  As Roger H. Soltau writes in his 1930 book on French politics:  "There remained some Socialist deputies who were not Syndicalist in their sympathies, and a few Syndicalists who did not vote for Socialist candidates, both parties maintained much the same tendencies, the destruction by revolutionary methods of the capitalist society, and the entire elimination of political frontiers by the international action of the proletariat."  This friendship directly affected the relationship between Syndicalists (the forerunners of Fascists) and Bolsheviks:  after the Bolshevik junta against the democratically elected revolutionary government that overthrew the Tsars, the Syndicalists actively opposed French intervention against the Bolsheviks in Russia.  Indeed, the party conflicts within Syndicalism were between the "Red Communists" of the cities of France and the "Green Communists" of the countryside.  This overlap between Fascists and Bolsheviks extended even to the Russian Fascist Party, which formed in Harbin, China during the 1930s; but whose leader, Konstantin Rodzaevsky later converted to Stalinism) said:  "Stalinism…is our Russian Fascism cleansed of extremes, illusions and errors."

Trotsky supported Mussolini over Lenin

Leon Trotsky, who was considered by Stalin to be too far to the Left, supported the position taken by Mussolini (that the Great War would facilitate the Marxist revolution) and Vladimir Lenin also supported this view.  Many Italian Marxists, who later became Fascists, also supported this position by Mussolini, including Sergio Panunzio, A.O. Olivetti, Roberto Michels and Paolo Orano.  Trotsky, when he learned of the expulsion of Mussolini, said that Italian Socialists had lost their only true revolutionary.  Mussolini did not stop considering himself a Leftist.  During the years between his expulsion from the Italian Socialist Party and his March on Rome in 1922, Mussolini was called in 1919 the "Lenin of Italy" for Fascist occupation of factories on behalf of the workers.  One of the folk heroes of Fascism was the poet and pilot Gabriele d'Annunzio, who said that what he was supporting in Fascism was a form of Latinized National Bolshevism.  In the 1920s, Mussolini expressed admiration for Lenin and saw the Soviet Union as having "Slav Fascism," and Comintern Chief Nicolay Bukharin in turn noted that the Fascist Party, more than any other party, adopted and applied the experiences of the Russian Revolution.  Fascism was not even seen as a competing ideology with Communism until the Sixth International in 1926.  Mussolini, in return, remarked that he welcomed Stalin as a "fellow-Fascist."  Fascists openly wondered whether Stalin was evolving into a Fascist.

Francesco Nitti, Prime Minister of Italy before Mussolini, wrote in his 1927 book, Bolshevism, Fascism and Democracy:  "If there is no longer any opposition in Italy, what further transformations has Fascism in store for us?  Will Mussolini yet become a Communist, in view of possible currents of popular feeling?  Will he perhaps suddenly revert to his original tenets?"  and he writes in the same book of Fascism and Bolshevism:  "There is little difference between the two, and that, in certain respects, Fascism and Bolshevism are the same" and, indeed, an entire chapter of that book entitled "Bolshevism and Fascism are Identical," that includes the following:  "In Italy today one finds that greater tolerance is shown toward Communists affiliated with Moscow than to Liberals, democrats, and Socialists."  Nitti was not a conservative or Right Wing politician, insofar as those terms are used today:  he was a leading Leftist in pre-war and post-war Italy, but he also was both a respected political figure and an implacable opponent of Fascism, which forced him to flee Italy

Professor Herbert Schneider of Columbia University in his 1928 book published by Oxford University Press, Making the Fascist State, wrote that it was possible that Hegelians and Marxists would soon discover that syndicalism is the synthesis of Socialism and Fascism, noting that some Socialists already were revising their philosophies. Sherwood Eddy wrote of Fascism and Bolshevism in 1933 that Fascist Italy and Soviet Russia had many things in common.  In 1928, George Bernard Shaw, literary giant and apologist for communism, noted in his book, The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism & Fascism, that  Communism and Fascism produced similar changes and that Fascism was better than Liberalism.

The Fascists (not the Nazis) as friend of Marxism

The chief organizer of Fascist labor unions in 1922 was Edmondo Rossoni who, as a professor in the University of Florence, described Benito Mussolini in the 1936 book, Under the Axe of Fascism, had been a "revolutionary Socialist of the extreme left.  He had been a militant of the revolutionary-Syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World in the United States."   Rossoni, like Nitti, left Italy early in the Fascist reign.  Kemechy, by contrast, was an unapologetic apologist for Mussolini.  So what does Kemechy have to say about Mussolini in his 1930 book, Il Duce: The Life and Work of Benito Mussolini?  Kemechy, the pro-Mussolini and pro-Fascist, says the same things that anti-Fascist and anti-Mussolini writers at the same time were saying.  Kemechy writes that Mussolini was a Socialist and a Leninist and a revolutionary.

When in power, after the March on Rome, Mussolini moved even more quickly than Hitler to make it clear that he desired friendly relations with the Soviet Union.  In 1922, the year of the March on Rome, Mussolini declared to the Chamber of Deputies that Italy had nothing to fear from the Soviet Union. In 1931, when Alfred Bingham, then the son of a conservative Republican Senator in the United States, visited Mussolini, having traveled both to Russia and to Italy, Mussolini informed him "Fascism is the same thing as Communism."   In 1938, Dorothy Thompson wrote almost exactly the same thing, when she wrote that the Communists and Fascists were fighting a phony struggle of ideals and that the forms of governments of Fascists and Communists were almost the same  and she goes on to note that the State as the ultimate good was invented by Hegel and Marx, and that Fascism was derived directly from this.  Maxim Gorky, the famous Soviet writer, left the Soviet Union and spent most the 1920s in Fascist Italy.  When he later returned, Gorky was given a large home in Moscow as well as a dacha.

Fascist Italy and the Soviet Union had good commercial relations.  Not only that, but Fascist Italy was a major supplier of arms to the Soviet Union, particularly aircraft and naval vessels.  The Russo-Italian Treaty of 1933 was not simply a commercial agreement, but a treaty of friendship, non-aggression and neutrality.  Not only did Fascist Italy and Bolshevik Russia sign military, diplomatic and economic accords in 1933 to help contain Hitler, but this was punctuated by favorable press reports in the totalitarian nations.  When the Bolsheviks and Nazis first signed their infamous non-aggression pact which began the Second World War, Molotov initially tried to allay the fears of the democracies by noting that this new agreement between the Bolsheviks and Nazis was essentially the same as the agreement that the Bolsheviks had made with the Fascists years earlier.  In 1937, Freund wrote that Italy's relations with Soviet Russia were satisfactory.  Genevieve Tabouis notes in her 1938 book, Blackmail or War, that Mussolini in 1934, in fidelity to his revolutionary past and sympathy with Bolshevism, quickly turned to the Soviet Union as a natural ally of Italy.  He did all possible to be on good terms with the Soviet government, even managing to get his representatives to the Kremlin before British Prime Minister Ramsey MacDonald.  The whole Italian press corps sang hymns of praise to Moscow, expressed its sympathy for the ideology of Lenin; the methods of which, during that period when the new Russia was being formed, likewise involved amoral pressure and physical coercion.  Later in her book, Tabouis notes that Mussolini himself wrote a thinly anonymous article in the Popolo d'Italia in which spoke of the joining of two great revolutions, Fascist and Bolshevik.  Rauschning also noted in 1938 "It is not long since the leader of Fascism himself arrived at the conclusion that Stalinism represented the development of Bolshevism into a sort of Fascism."

The budding friendship between Fascists and Bolsheviks against Nazis

This Fascist friendship for Bolsheviks was reciprocated.  On July 15, 1934 Izvestia, the official newspaper of the Soviet Union, noted that the Soviet Union and Fascist Italy were good friends. One may argue that Machiavellian machinations among totalitarian systems are normal.  But the publication for millions of Soviet citizens to read a statement that "Fascism" was not considered the official enemy of Bolshevism is something different. 

The Soviet Union, like the democracies, formally condemned the Fascist Invasion of Ethiopia.  Privately, the Bolsheviks acted differently.  During the Ethiopian War, as Henry Wolfe writes in his 1940 book, The Imperial Soviets, Russia supplied the Italian army with huge quantities of oil and also with war material, and Wolfe notes that Soviet trade relations with Fascist Italy were very cooperative.   In fact, as Fascist Italy prepared for war against Abyssinia that autumn, forty Greek freighters brought Soviet wheat, petroleum, coal, tar, timber, barley and oats for Mussolini's war machine.  Eugene Lyons noted in 1941 "it [the Soviet Union] had continued to sell oil and grain to Italy while pretending to oppose Ethiopian aggression…"

An interesting aside is the reaction within Italy by Christians to the Abyssinian War.  Whole towns in Italy flocked to churches imploring the Virgin Mary to stop the war, and the Fascist leadership was at its wit's end on how to stop this appeal to Christian conscience.  Realpolitick, whether by the Bolsheviks, by the Nazis, by the French or by the British was morally indifferent to the Fascist imperial conquest of another more primitive empire.  Christian popular opinion within Fascist Italy was seriously opposed to the war.  The Catholic Church was also strongly opposed to Fascism, despite a façade of cooperation, because of the paganism of Fascism, and this hostility increased the closer that Mussolini turned to Hitler.

In Austria the Heimwehr, the Fascist paramilitary group, and the Schutzbund, the Bolshevik paramilitary group, fought side by side in the 1930s.  As noted earlier, both the Fascists and the Bolsheviks opposed the union of Germany and Austria and worked together to prevent that Anschluss. The Fascists and the Bolsheviks both fretted about the direction of Nazi expansion - east and south - and tried to prevent Balkan states from falling under the influence of Germany before those two other totalitarian states had reached an understanding with the Nazis.  Even when the Fascists nominally were aligned against the Bolsheviks, it was with great reluctance, as Dorothy Thompson noted in October 1937, that the Italians signed the anti-Comintern pact.  As late as 1941, Eugene Lyons wrote of the "strong political bonds between Fascist Italy and Soviet Russia."

The last days of  Fascism in 1944

After Italy entered the Second World War on the side of Germany, its fate was tied to the Third Reich and it had little chance to show its independence - other than resisting, for a much longer time than other "allies" of Germany or occupied territories, the Nazi persecution of Jews. But after the Grand Fascist Council fired Mussolini and the new Italian government declared war on Germany, Mussolini had a chance to show his true ideological colors in the rump state in northern Italy called Salo or the Italian Socialist Republic.  The constitution of this odd polity was written by Nicola Bombacci, a Communist and a friend of Lenin.  In February 1944, Salo issued a "Legislative Decree for the Socialization of Enterprises" which provided that all enterprises with capital of over one million lire or employed more than a hundred persons would be run by a committee composed of an equal number of management and workers.  After that decree, Salo moved even more radically to the Left.  In 1944, Mussolini praised Stalin and said that if he had to choose which nation should dominate Europe, it would be the Soviet Union.  Bombacci, the Communist, who was executed after Mussolini and his mistress were killed, shouted as his last words: "Long live Mussolini!  Long live Socialism!"

Fascism, like its siblings on the Left, Bolshevism, Nazism and Maoism, lusted only after power – at all costs and by all means – in the end, the "fascists" proved less like the Nazis and more like the Bolsheviks, although none of those believed in anything greater than power.  It is a fable of our anti-thought elite that we should absurdly consider Mussolini (a lifelong Marxist) as the enemy of Marxism or that Mussolini (who loathed Hitler and Nazi
racial polities) as endorsing Nazi  Germany, which Nazis and Fascists nearly went to war because of the differences. 

Anytime someone tries to smear you with "fascism," remind them that the only people who ever called themselves "fascists" lived in Italy and thought Karl Marx was a prophet.  Remind them that the leader of fascism died before a firing squad praising the Marxian revolution.  Then suggest that this mean was Leftist.