[ExI] What is meant here by "fascism"?

[Stefano Vaj]

On 10/6/07, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
> But what
> exactly is the meaning of "fascism" here?

I have myself insisted on the idea that the word "fascism" (as
"christian", "libertarian", "communist", etc.) should not be employed
as some kind of categorical, metaphysical anathema, but rather
restricted to what self-defined fascists have themselves identified as
their historical identity. For instance, strictly speaking, many
Italian fascist intellectuals  doubted in the thirties that the Third
Reich itself could be considered as a "true" fascist regime.

To wonder whether Montezuma or Ramses or Torquemada or Louis XIV or
Breznev, or for that matter Bush, are "fascists" in some sense is just
bad rethorics, since there are obvious cultural gaps that make the
comparison moot, whatever blame their regimes may deserve.

Stefano Vaj