“God does not exist. Religion in science is an absurdity, in practice an immorality and in men a disease.”One does not get non-communism out of a communist who merely retools his communism to make it more appealing to those who are not willing to give up religion, private property (most of it that is) and families at a given point in time. But a communist Mussolini remained at heart, always.
— 1924
“Fascism establishes the real equality of individuals before the nation… the object of the regime in the economic field is to ensure higher social justice for the whole of the Italian people… What does ‘social justice’ mean? It means work guaranteed, fair wages, decent homes; it means the possibility of continuous evolution and improvement. Nor is this enough. It means that the workers must enter more and more intimately into the productive process and share its necessary discipline… As the past century was the century of capitalist power, the twentieth century is the century of power and glory of labor.”
— 1935
“When the war is over, in the world’s social revolution that will be followed by a more equitable distribution of the earth’s riches, due account must be kept of the sacrifices and of the discipline maintained by the Italian workers. The Fascist revolution will make another decisive step to shorten social distances.”
— 1941
In fascism (the European variety) traditional religion was encouraged as a building block of society (so long as it supported the political purposes of the state); in communism it was subject to utter extermination; in fascism free enterprise and private ownership was allowed and encouraged (so long as it served the political purposes of the state); in communism it was, like religion, subject to extermination and confiscation.
I am no fan of fascism (having had family members murdered under fascist occupation and others who fought it in WW2). But if I had to choose between living under one of these two systems (and I HAVE lived under communism in my youth), its a "no-brainer".