Fascists and Bolsheviks as friends

If Nazis were allies as often as enemies of Bolsheviks, what was the relationship between Fascists and Bolsheviks?  The pseudo-cognition of Sinisterism seldom talks about Nazis at all, but rather about "fascists" and these "fascists" are the mortal enemies of Bolsheviks, the polar ideological opposite of Marxism, and so on.  This is not true.  Benito Mussolini did not begin his political career as just a Marxist, but as a violent, revolutionary Marxist.  Mussolini was not just a leading Leftist in Italy, he was one of the most important Communists in the world.  In 1914, Mussolini organized "Red Week" which was aimed at causing a violent revolution against the corrupt capitalist world.  Mussolini is often referred to by the name "Duce," which means "leader" - rather like Fuhrer in German or Vozd in Russian - and this is usually attributed to be a name given to him by the Fascists.  This is not true.  The moniker was given to him at a banquet given by Marxists after his release from prison for protesting the "imperialist" Italian war in Libya, at which one veteran socialist said:  "From today you, Benito, are not only the representative of Romagna Socialists, but the Duce of all revolutionary Socialists in Italy!"

This Marxist Mussolini was the editor of Avanti! which was the leading Marxist periodical in Italy and one of the leading Marxists periodicals in the world.  Although most biographies of Mussolini touch on that long period of his life, few also mention that Mussolini was at the same time editor of Utopia, the monthly intellectual journal of Italian Marxists.  Mussolini did not quit being a Marxist.  He was expelled from the Italian Socialist Party because he supported Italy intervening on the side of the Allied Powers and against the Central Powers in the Great War.  Although historians can, and have, argued that this represented a movement by Mussolini to the mythical Right, there was a sharp fissure within the Left about whether or not it helped promote world proletariat revolution to support the war or to oppose it.

Actually, Mussolini was following, rather than leading, extreme Leftists in Italy. As Zeev Sternhell explains in The Birth of Fascist Ideology, on August 19, 1914, Alceste De Ambris, speaking from the platform of the Milanese Syndical Union (USM), attacked neutrality and urged going to the aid of France and Britain.  He equated the Germans with reaction, and equated the French with the French Revolution.   Mussolini dropped his neutrality at this time and began to publish Il Popolo d'Italia in November 1914, supporting entering the war on the allied side.  When war was declared, Mussolini and other revolutionary syndicalist leaders volunteered for duty."

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