R. De Felice is probably the most generous among the students of fascism in extending the time span of Mussolini as a socialist, as he claims that Mussolini was still thinking of himself and developing his political action as a socialist leader in 1919. The claim, that perhaps allows De Felice to create a bridge between Mussolini's socialist experience and his influence on the creation of the Fasci di combattimento in 1919, is often described as the most questionable point in De Felice's analysis of early fascism. It also is not very convincing in terms of establishing that bridge as De Felice himself points out that at the time of the Sansepolcro program, Mussolini was not entirely committed to the fascist adventure.

And questionable it is – despite my large appreciation for De Felice's work. R. Vivarelli to name one has observed that De Felice makes that claim but fails to provide any evidence to support it, arguing on the other hand that Mussolini had already aligned with large portions of the Nationalist program by 1917. Other observers have put Mussolini's abandonment of socialism earlier: at the time of the interventionist turn and the convergence with the nationalist group or earlier, when his openings to the revolutionary trade unionists became a deliberate motion outside of the socialist organization (which is to be around 1913-14).

Others – see more in general the discussion of L. Salvatorelli and A. Tasca – have placed Mussolini entirely outside of the socialist field; and even disregarding the useless third-international propaganda, Mussolini's choices and following political progress gives argument for taking this at least into consideration.

Personally, and considering Mussolini's personal view of the world, I believe that he saw himself as a socialist until his participation to the war – but even this only along the lines of his understanding of ideology.

It is tempting to claim understanding of Fascism by moving along the lines of modern time politics. But Fascism existed and developed a hundred years ago – in a reality that was remarkably different and can not be described through the broad categories of right and left, liberal and conservative, as we wouldn't attempt to describe a contemporary political landscape by using Whigs and Tories.

At the time it was common to describe history as a progressive process – a view that is no longer dominant – driven by certain forces and marked by a traceable evolution. For some the dominant force were the production relations, the economical forces – material, concrete structures – for others it was something more abstract, irrational even: it was the racial-cultural community of the people in the various volkisch theories; for others it was an all encompassing idea, an idea that worked as a sort of summary of an age. I must remark that while Marxism certainly describes an evolution of changing ideologies, but in a Marxist formulation those ideas are those of the dominant class and change according to the relations between classes; here instead and in Mussolini's mind ideas soon replaced economical forces as the true motor of history. Among these forces moved the great Men: the Napoleons the Alexanders; men able to understand the leading idea of their age, perhaps anticipating it and turning it into a myth to inspire the masses.

Mussolini seemed to have believed socialism, class struggle, general strike, socialist revolution as those ideas: not the material motors of history but the ideal motors of history! And Mussolini remarks this already by himself in 1912 when he claims that idealism was consistent with Marxism ad that it was possible to develop a Marxist Idealism where Marxism was no longer the practical method of understanding societal evolution but an ideology, a “religion for the masses”. I don't know how much Marx would have appreciated that; jokes aside that statement – inside the general anti economicist stance taken by Mussolini and his future support to the maximalist current – puts Mussolini already outside of Marxism, and I would add unquestionably. Even observers that looked positively at Mussolini's idealist reform of socialism – such as B. Croce – had noted the paradoxical nature of a Marxist Idealism.

Moving forward and taking briefly into account the practical development of Fascism, we must come to the conclusion that the Fascist Government and the Regime almost systematically took a stance that can be defined broadly speaking anti socialist: compressing the salaries, favoring the production forces over the workers, suppressing the right to strike, determining an overall deterioration of the condition of the workers; following a policy of high military expenses traditional of Italian authoritarianism, retaining a significant measure of protectionist barriers and pursuing a continuation of the direct influence of the State into the initiative of private entrepreneurs – a fact that pushed a large participation of State capitals into the production world but did not change the substantial private nature of the production system nor ever appeared aimed at changing that point. Also Fascism explicitly refused internationalism in favor of nationalism – and that already from the beginning – denied the mere idea of class struggle and even the class structure of society.

With those in mind and Mussolini's anti materialistic stance, there is little to characterize Fascism as socialist. And even less if we take a more functionalist approach: while it is true that the original Sansepolcro program had elements of socialist inspirations, often filtered through the futurist field, that program was soon entirely disregarded. The few hundreds joining the various Fasci in 1919 might have held socialist beliefs (as the case for the founder of Ferrara's Fascio, O. Gaggioli) but were soon reduced to irrelevance as they were unable to turn their minimal movement into anything of consequence until the agrarian forces turned it into an anti-socialist instrument: it was the anti-socialist fight that allowed for the few hundred thousands to join Fascism.