ABSTRACT
Both Marxists and fascists would, for their own reasons, seek to obscure or even deny Mussolini's socialist origins and orthodoxy. The bourgeoisie is castigated for accepting "the ideology of a timorous humanitarian middle class professing to have freed its thought from the conditions of its existence. Political belief, or ideology, is therefore important because it provides important clues to how men may perceive their options. The development of the ideology of Italian fascism must be understood as the development of the political thought of Benito Mussolini. Mussolini had always strongly held to a belief in the fundamental irrationality of men; thus the "quantitative" basis of democracy was rejected in favor of the elitism that was so prominent an influence in Italian thought in the first two decades of the century. Elitism implies authoritarianism, productionism implies corporatism, all are implied by nationalism.
