The fact that Mussolini emphasizes the ‘ideal’ with a vigor unknown to Marx and Lenin does not, however, place him outside the framework of Marxist o… - Ernst Nolte

The theory of totalitarianism certainly provided a way out in offering a distinction between ‘democratic’ anticommunism and ‘totalitarian’ anticommunism, but it did not prevail for long, and following this, from Right to Left, from press to university, all spokespersons agreed to concentrate on the examination of National Socialism and to focus on ‘Stalinism’ only in passing, without speaking of a ‘world communist movement’ at all.

On the contrary, for the doctrine of totalitarianism the ‘liberal constitutional state’ is the self-evident norm, from which Marxism and Fascism (or national socialism) are distinguishable as essentially identical, namely, totalitarian phenomena.

Mussolini himself undoubtedly wished to be regarded as a Marxist. Whenever possible he extols the memory of the ‘father and teacher’ who alone represents the ‘compass’ of the proletarian and Marxist movement. Even the master’s most disputed doctrines, the theory of progressive pauperization, for example, finds in him a stout defender, and there is scarcely one concrete political decision which he does not justify by invoking Marx. Even in his demand for Italy’s entry into the war he uses Marx as a key witness.