Italian Fascism was a hybrid ideology in practice: it drew elements from socialism (state interventions in economy, an emphasis on welfare policies like public housing schemes, state sanctioned free time activities), liberalism (a tendency to favor industrial and financial interests), totalitarian measures (heavy handed propaganda, total elimination of academic freedom, widespread delation, violent opposition to dissenters) "old school" nationalism/traditionalism (militarism, close ties with the Catholic Church, obsequious - if insincere - deference to the monarchy).

This was just a result of the complex web of political counterweights Mussolini had to move in as a politician. He had many feet in one shoe, having to appease the King, the Pope, the Catholic working masses, the wealthy, the army.

Hitler, on the other hand, had a very tense relationship with the religious establishment. He did, however, rule a nation where antisemitism was relatively widespread and historically present - maybe not the raving, all-encompassing hate for Jews he and his cronies adopted, but prevalent enough.

Italians were never that antisemitic, culturally, so Mussolini's platform reflected that.

I wouldn't say that racism wasn't inherent to Fascism. In fact I would assert the opposite.

One of the main breaking points in the racial theory (if you can call it that) between the Fascist ideology and the Nazi ideology was due to the Nordic centrist view point. Mussolini and the Fascists rejected this idea as it taught that the Mediterranean people were on a lower rung of society from the 'more pure' Nordics. This ideology was actually devisive within Italy itself, as it divided the more 'Nordic' north from the more 'Latin' south. Instead, the Fascists preached a more pan-Italian nationalism: the Italians were better, and more pure as a race, because they were Italian. The Italians themselves were placed on a higher rung than other Mediterranean people because they were they 'only ones' that had united themselves behind a national identity (which was conveniently the one preached by the PNF). The Fascists concocted lists detailing the people in lands to be conquered in terms of value.

It was thus the duty of the Italian people to spread (through the spazio vitale program) their culture to the lands which had once been that of the Roman empire.

Now, Mussolini's own views on not just racism but antisemitism varied wildely throughout his life (much like the majority of his opinions). He is on record giving speeches espousing for the need for an increase in the birthrate of 'Aryans and Mediterraneans' in the early 1920s. This would inform one of Fascisms great disasters of the 'Battle of the Births' in which the Fascists attempted to raise the birthrate of the Italian people but ultimately caused it to plummet. He would also espouse beliefs echoing jewish-banking conspiracies throughout much of Fascism's rise to power while keeping a jewish mistress - Margherita Sarfatti - whom has been called the Jewish Mother of Fascism. Sarfatti also played a heavy role in Fascist Party propaganda and was Mussolini's chief biographer in the 1920s. Ultimately, Fascism would remain clear of encoded antisemitism until 1938.

Mussolini would also at times decree that there wasn't such a thing as race, and that it was entirely a mental construct. Once again, this was usually used in connection to the belief that the Italians had formed themselves and thus were the strongest out of the Mediterranean people.

Reading: Davide Rodogno, Fascism's European Empire: Italian Occupation during the Second World War; David Kertzer, The Pope and Mussolini; Bosworth, Mussolini's Italy: Life under the Dictatorship

I'll leave Italy to /u/sunshinebag and /u/Klesk_vs_Xaero but start off with something that unites the historically fascist movements in their ideology: As a political movement in the context of its time, Fascism understood itself as the viable alternative to both Democracy and Socialism in solving the political and economic problems of its time, especially the class conflict. Rejecting both liberal democracy and socialism aimed at communist utopia, it saw itself as the "third way" to unite the nation and lead its people to greatness, mostly through a policy of uniting the classes in the service of the nation, of violently suppressing political dissent, building or at least attempting to build a mass movement, and an ideological emphasize on practice rather than theory, though this is even more present in Nazism than other forms of Fascism.

Austrofascism was ideologically very much inspired by the Katholiche Soziallehre (Catholic Social Tenet or Social Teaching), meaning that they perceived the way to transcend social class conflict during their rule through the establishment of Catholic inspired Corporate State. This meant that instead of class conflict being waged in the form of unions vs. employers or similar, they sought to organize society along the lines of Stände, i.e. your profession, where all members of one profession no matter on which side they stood in class conflict where organized together in order to transcend class conflict in national and catholic way. Austrofascism has been rightly called a form of clerical fascism in this sense.

Nazism on the other hand attempted the same in principle but based on a racial and national rather than religious basis. For the Nazis class conflict was something their imaginary Jewish opponent had introduced and used against the German race and thus only a racially homogeneous German nation could transcend it for the benefit of all Aryans.

Austrofascism saw itself in a more "restauration" tradition than the especially the early Nazis who embraced a revolutionary rhetoric. This also becomes apparent in the different practices of Antisemitism. While it is obvious that the Nazis wanted Jews to disappear from German society as a whole through a variety of ways, the Austrofascists did embrace discrimination of Jews but along the lines of them being relegated to their "place" in society, meaning that they e.g. enacted quotas that Jews were only supposed to be represented in certain professions in line with their percentage of the total population. The Austrofascists' utopia was a Catholic and restorative nation where everyone knew and only acted accordingly to their "place". They imagined their state as the restorer of the "natural", i.e. willed by the Catholic God, state of things on earth, which in their interpretation meant that e.g. farmers were more valuable than others, a strong emphasize on "traditional" professions and so on and so forth.

While this restarautive aspect did ideologically include the restoration of the Habsburg Empire on some level, Austrofascism lacked the sort of expansionist agenda seen by Italian or German fascism. In terms of foreign policy, the main goal of the Austrofascist state was to remain independent of Nazi Germany – a plan that didn't really work as we know now.

So, in short, in Austria fascism we see a restorative ideology strongly influenced by political catholicism while the Nazis took a very different path ideologically.

However, the fascism present in Mussolini's Italy and, briefly, Dollfus' Italy was apparently quite different.

Engelbert Dollfuß established his dictatorship in 1933 and was assassinated by the Nazis 1934. After that Kurt Schuschnigg took over and lead the regime till 1938 (Anschluß) - so it's more Schuschnigg's Austria than Dollfuß' Austria. (ofc Dollfuß was the one who did the coup in 1933, so I suppose you may call it Dollfuß' Austria, too.)

Racism is apparently not inherent to fascism. I believe that Mussolini rejected Nazi racialism, at least before Italy and Germany became allies. Before this alliance, Italy and Austria seemed to fear or disprove of Nazi fascism. Why was this?

I can't say much about Italy, but the Austrian Government disproved the Nazis because they were opponents. Until May 1933 the NSDAP was a legal party in Austria - of course they didn't cease to exist when Dollfuß' regime prohibited the party. They killed Dollfuß in 1934 and tried to take over the country, making Dollfuß a martyr who died in a "war" against Hitler. It's no big surprise that the regime didn't like the Nazis.

Besides that: Dollfuß' and Schuschnigg's party was the Christlichsoziale Partei (Christian Social Party. "Christian" wasn't just a name, they clearly identified themselves as Christian or even Catholic. Like Mussolini they had strong ties with the church (one of their former chancellors even was a Catholic prelate). Hitler otoh didn't like the Catholic church very much. Dollfuß' and Schuschnigg's regime was conservative — they even rehabilitated the Habsburg family, let them return to Austria, returned parts of their confiscated goods and built good connections to Otto Habsburg-Lothringen (the son of the last Austrian emperor and former crown prince).

There are many ways to approach this question. First, though, some distinctions must be made.

Italian Fascism lasted for over twenty years and, during this period – while we can agree that it went solidifying into a more defined character during the 1930s – it changed. The early years Fascism (pre Matteotti murder and Acerbo law) was different from Fascism in the late 1920s and again different from Fascism after the Lateranensi Pacts, which furthermore evolved towards the end of the 1930s with the alliance with Germany. This evolution originated from both internal and external influences.

Unfortunately, as I commented in other circumstances, I find it extremely hard to define Fascism – if not in a very broad sense – without limiting to some subset of its features; which offers very little to a comparison with National socialism, given that the same evolution and complexity – if maybe less marked – exists for the Nazi Regime. I fear therefore that any answer I can attempt will be unsatisfying.

Yet I have been summoned; and thus I will anyway try to point out some things that may add to the discussion.

To avoid repeating it everywhere: my knowledge of National socialism is essentially based on Kershaw's biography of Hitler. The following will include no doubt some major oversimplifications and – likely – mistakes. But I can't try to make a comparison without speaking of Germany too. If you feel like I am wrong about something, it may very well be so.

I also spoke a bit about Italian foreign policy – this is a brief, brief summary of the parts that are relevant to the question. It does not provide a general overview of foreign policy during Fascism.

Also, I ignore many points of contact between the two regimes and make passing reference to others. They existed but I try to stay focused on the question. In any case, some of these points of contact are more relevant than the distinctions that end up being made about them, so...

Fascism lasted for a long period of time without the immediate perspective of a war – and we may argue, up to 1939, with reasonable expectations not to be involved in a major European conflict. This is not true for National Socialism, which increasingly acted within this perspective. This is not to say that Mussolini and the Italian Military did not consider the possibility of a war between European nations; but this was framed in a more conventional foreign policy set up. While on the other hand, it is my understanding that most of the economical and social policies of the National socialists were shaped by the idea of an impending decisive conflict.

This affected the extent and the rapidity of the transformation of economy – and society to a lesser extent – in a totalitarian sense. A process slower and less definitive in the Italian case.

Fascism had indeed to develop a regime of forced co-operation with two major powers within Italy: the Church and the King. Throughout the twenty years history of the Fascist Regime, these relations were marked by periods of agreement and periods of conflict, with the major conflict involving the figure of Pope Pius XI. On a purely ideological perspective, these relations tempered some of the most extreme tendencies within Fascism and – at the same time – while confining them on the fringe side of politics, they prevented an abrupt resolution. The internal opposition to Mussolini did not end in bloodbaths but in a slow, gradual, marginalization where the Duce carefully severed his opponent's ties to the actual power, while often leaving him with an aura of prestige among local minorities. While the rise and fall of prominent Nazis also proceeded from the Fuhrer, it was often more dramatic and perhaps less craftily orchestrated. On a practical side: the institutions of the Church and the King's bureaucracy, both administrative and military, were able to survive – to a certain extent and not without a struggle (see for example the events surrounding the Azione Cattolica)– as parallel, competing ways of power, whose presence was essential to the possibility of “replacing” Mussolini with Badoglio. The comparative absence of these structures within Germany – where the institutions of the Republic had been quite effectively erased – may have contributed to the difficulties in developing an alternative to Hitler's power.

The issue of racism...

I need a short premise to this point. It is often complex to define the core elements of a form of government, where effort must be taken to determine whether these elements are injected into the country by the Regime or rather filtered through the country into the Regime. Many of the characters of Fascism – and legitimate ones to be fair, all worth mentioning – are not original to Fascism; they come from a complex, composite tradition which drew back to the period from late XIX century and the immediate post-war: Nationalism, Trade-Unionism, Pan-Culturalism, Expansionism, Neo-aristocracysm, Trencherism, etc. These elements all took their part in defining the unifying myth of the Anti-Liberal opposition: the New State.

It is not surprising that a Regime heavily shaped by Mussolini, who had very little personal commitment to great ideals as guides but a hefty reliance on them as tools, would have made use of all these myths, weighting more or less on each one during the different phases of its existence.

Now, to my understanding, the italian society was in the years building up to Fascism, realistically speaking, racist. We may argue that it was not a malicious racism, advocating violent actions or depicting other races as enemies, but it was the condescending, paternalistic racism that other countries had previously experienced during their history. It was the kind of racism that allowed comic strips depicting the italian colonists civilizing the African people by “impregnating their women” to be perceived as funny and not disturbing. In this context there is no doubt that the italian society was pervaded by a latent racism, as far as our modern understanding goes. This racism filtered through Fascism and became a part of it. I would argue though that it was not a core element of it. It was a part of the italian society that con not be taken apart from the regime, to easily tell where one ends and the other one begins.

What was on the other hand legitimately different from the National Socialist Regime, was the fact that italian racism had not – with the exception of fringe cultural elements – the character of an irreducible natural struggle. The context of social, national, class struggle was, within Italy, mostly historical and the idea of history as a sequence of unavoidable clashes was not framed in a racial context; which to my understanding marks another difference from the National Socialist case.

Furthermore the racial issue did not extend as much into antisemitism, given the limited number of Jews living in Italy and their deep integration within italian society. There were some antisemitic instances, but even these were mostly framed in a religious context and not a racial one.

What examples of right-wingers praising Mussolini are there and in what countries? I'm genuinely curious, I've never heard that. PM me if this isn't acceptable for this subreddit.