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It was the revolutionary syndicalists, those dissidents and nonconformists of the Left, who by means of their criticism of Marxist determinism created the first elements of the Fascist synthesis in the first decade of our century.
— Zeev Sternhell
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Thus, fascism adopted the economic aspect of liberalism but completely denied its philosophical principles and the intellectual and moral heritage of modernity.
Like all self-respecting revolutionaries, Mussolini considered himself a Marxist. He regarded Marx as the ‘greatest theoretician of socialism’ and Marxism as the ‘scientific doctrine of class revolution.’
Marxists could be converted to national socialism, as indeed quite a number of them were, similarly, national socialism could sign treaties with Communists, exchange ambassadors, and coexist with them, if only temporarily. Nothing like this, however, applied to the Jews.
Sorel declared that Marx’s theory was ‘the greatest innovation in philosophy for centuries; it was the starting point of a fruitful transformation in our form of speculation. All our ideas must concentrate round the new principles of scientific socialism.’
Thus, the historical circumstance of the half century preceding the Second World War gave rise to the essence of fascism: a synthesis of organic nationalism and anti-Marxist socialism, a revolutionary ideology based on a simultaneous rejection of liberalism, Marxism, and democracy.
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