What if two of history’s most infamous ideologies—Nazism and Fascism—shared more in common fundamentally with Communism than we often recognize? Recently, a chairwoman of a German political party controversially claimed that Hitler was a communist. While this assertion is incorrect, much of the criticism it drew focused only on the visible differences between Hitler and Communists, leaving their deeper ideological similarities unexamined. By revisiting the words of Hitler and Mussolini, it becomes clear that their rivalry with Communism was less about rejecting its principles and more about promoting competing visions of collectivism.

It is now the duty of classical liberals, who fundamentally diverge from both communists and fascists, to seize the opportunity and reveal the shared collectivist roots of these ideologies. As a classical liberal, I have always been skeptical of my ideology being grouped on the same “side” as the Nazis, given the stark philosophical differences. The disproportionate attention drawn to the rivalries between various forms of collectivism hinders thorough political discourse and leaves the core question of individualism versus collectivism inadequately explored.

Mussolini: From Marxist to Nationalist Collectivist

“If the 19th century was the century of the individual, we are free to believe that this is the ‘collective’ century,” wrote Benito Mussolini. He began his career as an ardent Marxist, even editing a socialist magazine. However, World War I and his perceived failure of Communist internationalism to galvanize workers led him to reconsider. Rather than abandoning collectivism, he sought a unifying force stronger than class: nationalism. In The Doctrine of Fascism, he argued that “the nation has not disappeared,” emphasizing that class distinctions obstruct true unity: “Class cannot destroy the nation. Class reveals itself as a collection of interests, but the nation is a history of sentiments, traditions, language, culture, and a race; it is a spiritual community.”

Mussolini criticized socialism, not for its collectivist nature, but for its inability to unify all segments of society. He described Fascism as an ideology that subsumed the individual into the state:

Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts 

The rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual…. The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value.

For Mussolini, the individual had meaning only as part of the collective, bound by traditions, culture, and duty:

Fascism sees in the world not only those superficial, material aspects in which man appears as an individual, standing by himself…but the nation and the country; individuals and generations bound together by a moral law…founded on duty.

Hitler’s Vision: Sacrificing the Individual for the Race

The Nazis developed a slogan that can be read in a May 1, 1834 New York Times article title: “The Common Good Before the Good of the Individual.” This Nazi slogan encapsulates Hitler’s collectivist ethos. While he diverged from socialism in practice, he acknowledged the collectivist appeal of its goals. In Mein Kampf, he states: “I had no feelings of antipathy towards the actual policy of the Social Democrats. That its avowed purpose was to raise the level of the working classes…” However, Hitler’s break with socialism stemmed from its perceived failure to preserve national unity and identity. He viewed socialism’s internationalism as a threat to German identity: “But the features that contributed most to estrange me from the Social Democratic movement was its hostile attitude towards the struggle for the conservation of Germanism in Austria…”

What set Hitler apart was his emphasis on race. His core concept of racial superiority was fundamentally rooted in collectivism, seeing the Aryan race as embodying the ideal of self-sacrifice for the community:

The greatness of the Aryan is not based on his intellectual powers, but rather on his willingness to devote all his faculties to the service of the community…. for the Ayran willingly subordinates his own ego to the common weal and when necessity calls he will even sacrifice his own life for the community.

Compare this to Marx’s assertion that “all previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.” Both philosophies promoted visions of collective good, differing only in the identity—class or race—that served as the unifying force.

For Hitler, the individual existed to serve the collective, with the state as the enforcer of this vision: “...the State is looked upon only as a means to an end and this end is the conservation of the racial characteristics of mankind.” While he opposed Marxism’s internationalism, he saw it more as a rival than a fundamentally different philosophy:

Only when the international idea, politically organized by Marxism, is confronted by the folk idea, equally well organized in a systematic way and equally well led--only then will the fighting energy in the one camp be able to meet that of the other on an equal footing; and victory will be found on the side of eternal truth.

Language Matters

Although sophisticated exploration of these subjects in the literature is important, what benefit would it bring if these ideas don’t reach the masses? How can we serve our passion for liberty if we fail to assert it daily through its most powerful tool—language? Should we tolerate the perception that our ideology is just a matter of degrees from Nazism and Fascism? Meanwhile, the most impactful irony is that these ideologies are often categorized as being on the “right!”

Are we unaware of the implications of this neglect? Or, if we are aware, have we been passionate enough to address it? What we need is an abundance of daily discourse that blends factuality with simplicity—one that consistently reinforces its implications through language until it becomes widely accepted.

Conclusion

The debate over whether Hitler and Nazism belong to the left obscures a deeper truth: their collectivist roots align them more closely with Communism than with individualism, classical liberalism, or libertarianism. The qualities of Hitler and Mussolini differed significantly; their denial of individualism was philosophical, whereas their resentment of Communism was more of a passionate rivalry. By highlighting the shared foundations of these ideologies through promoting alternative political categorizations, we should incorporate these facts into everyday political discourse and reestablish their significance as the only truly distinctive ideology.

Recognizing these less-explored, but fundamental, common features would help societies to have a broader perspective towards political relations and avoid falling for runaway collectivist movements simply because they offer a new leading identity—whether defined by class, nation, race, or gender. Classical liberalism has played a groundbreaking role in shaping the modern world—a world that, despite its flaws, is far removed from the hardships of earlier times. It should now become the mission of classical liberals to uncover the truth.