"At times, both Mussolini and Hitler portrayed their ideas as forms of ‘socialism’ (although the notion of a link between socialism and fascism is deeply controversial, and rejected by virtually all socialists). Mussolini had previously been an influential member of the Italian Socialist Party and editor of its newspaper, Avanti, while the Nazi Party espoused a philosophy it called ‘national socialism’. To some extent, undoubtedly, this represented a cynical attempt to elicit support from urban workers. Nevertheless, despite obvious ideological rivalry between fascism and socialism, fascists did have an affinity for certain socialist ideas and positions. In the first place, lower-middle-class fascist activists had a profound distaste for large-scale capitalism, reflected in a resentment towards big business and financial institutions. For instance, small shopkeepers were under threat from the growth of department stores, the smallholding peasantry was losing out to large-scale farming, and small businesses were increasingly in hock to the banks. Socialist or ‘leftist’ ideas were therefore prominent in German grassroots organizations such as the SA, or Brownshirts, which recruited significantly from among the lower middle classes.
Second, fascism, like socialism, subscribes to collectivism, putting it at odds with the ‘bourgeois’ values of capitalism. Fascism places the community above the individual; Nazi coins, for example, bore the inscription ‘Common Good before Private Good’. Capitalism, in contrast, is based on the pursuit of self-interest and therefore threatens to undermine the cohesion of the nation or race. Fascists also despise the materialism that capitalism fosters: the desire for wealth or profit runs counter to the idealistic vision of national regeneration or world conquest that inspires fascists.
Third, fascist regimes often practised socialist-style economic policies designed to regulate or control capitalism. Capitalism was thus subordinated to the ideological objectives of the fascist state. As Oswald Mosley (1896–1980), leader of the British Union of Fascists, put it, ‘Capitalism is a system by which capital uses the nation for its own purposes. Fascism is a system by which the nation uses capital for its own purposes.’ Both the Italian and German regimes tried to bend big business to their political ends through policies of nationalization and state regulation. For example, after 1939, German capitalism was reorganized under Hermann Göring’s Four Year Plan, deliberately modelled on the Soviet idea of Five Year Plans.
However, the notion of fascist socialism has severe limitations. For instance, ‘leftist’ elements within fascist movements, such as the SA in Germany and Sorelian revolutionary syndicalists in Italy, were quickly marginalized once fascist parties gained power, in the hope of cultivating the support of big business. This occurred most dramatically in Nazi Germany, through the purge of the SA and the murder of its leader, Ernst Röhm, in the ‘Night of the Long Knives’ in 1934. Marxists have thus argued that the purpose of fascism was to salvage capitalism rather than to subvert it. Moreover, fascist ideas about the organization of economic life were, at best, vague and sometimes inconsistent; pragmatism, not ideology, determined fascist economic policy. Finally, anti-communism was more prominent within fascism than anti-capitalism. A core objective of fascism was to seduce the working class away from Marxism and Bolshevism, which preached the insidious, even traitorous, idea of international working-class solidarity and upheld the misguided values of cooperation and equality. Fascists were dedicated to national unity and integration, and so wanted the allegiances of race and nation to be stronger than those of social class."
(Heywood, Andrew. Political Ideologies: An Introduction. 7th ed. London: Red Globe/Macmillan, 2021. pp. 155-7)
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"First of all, it is important to note that there was nothing socialist about National Socialism, at least in the Marxist sense. Hitler and his followers utterly rejected fundamental socialist ideas such as the inevitability of class struggle and the ultimate elimination of national boundaries. It is true that, particularly early on, National Socialists embraced radical ideas such as abolition of “unearned” income (i.e., dividends), redistribution of wealth, and even nationalization of certain industries. Hitler himself was highly critical of the German bourgeoisie, which he believed had focused selfishly on its own material well-being at the expense of the nation as a whole. Nevertheless, he consistently defended private property, and frequently praised the work of individual entrepreneurs.
For National Socialists the interests of the nation trumped all other concerns, whether individual or class-based. This meant not that business owners should be dispossessed or that large firms should be dissolved, but that they should be forced to serve the needs of the German people. The state would, therefore, be the dominant force in the economy—as it would be in society at large. Hitler sometimes offered the model of the army as an ideal social organization, with a top-down command structure whose merit was ultimately based on the extent to which it served the national interest. Capitalists who were willing to accept government regimentation would be permitted to profit handsomely, but those who refused would be destroyed. When questioned about his use of the term “socialist,” he admitted that it was “unfortunate” and that it should not be interpreted to mean that all “business must be socialized; it means only that they can be socialized if they offend against the interests of the nation. As long as they do not do that, it would be simply a crime to destroy business life.”"
(Moser, John E. The Global Great Depression and the Coming of World War II. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2015. p. 121)
What arrogance! 