Conservative authoritarian regimes have always had a tendency to demobilize the masses and to prevent them from taking any active part in political life. These regimes offer the masses values and a social model derived from the past which might avoid the horrors of some recent revolutionary upheavals. On the other hand, fascism had always had a tendency – and this had been its strength – to create among the masses the feeling of always being mobilized, of having a direct relationship to the leader, viewing him as someone capable of interpreting their own aspirations and translating them into action. Fascism creates the feeling of participating and contributing not to the restoration of a social order of historical limitations and inadequacies but to a revolution from which a new social order, better and fairer than the previous one, can originate. This is the reason why fascism managed to retain mass support for such a long period of time.
Renzo de Felice, “Italian Fascism and the Middle Classes,” Who Were the Fascists?
