Re: Socialism & Fascism, sent by a reader:

“Fascism cannot be comprehensively understood without an understanding of Marxism. This is true not only because contemporary phenomena cannot be adequately understood without a knowledge of the facts that preceded them in time (and with which they are linked dialectically), but also because of the points of contact which, in spite of everything, remain. That which, to its advantage, distinguishes Italian Fascism from German National Socialism, is its painful passage through the purgatory of the socialist system, with its impressive heritage of scientific and philosophic thought from Saint-Simon through Marx and Sorel.” [Roberto Michels, “Lineamenti di storia operaia nell’ Italia degli ultimi venti’ anni,” Educazione fascista, 11, 10 (1933), 356. Quoted as proem to Chapter 1 of A. James Gregor, Young Mussolini and the Intellectual Origins of Fascism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), p. 1]Robert Michels (1876-1936), Political Sociologist and Economist