Racism is NOT essential in fascist ideology. It is essential in NAZI ideology, which is either a species of fascism or a different thing altogether, depending on your definition.
Note that 80% of Italian Jews survived the Holocaust, as opposed to 20% of French Jews, largely because implementation of the Nazis' demands was being blocked at all levels by Italian officials, that is, members of the Fascist Party. The Fascist Party also had many Jews as members -- Mussolini, if memory serves, specifically exempted them and their relatives from the Nazi demands when he eventually caved in to Hitler.
IIRC the Italians did enact anti-miscegination laws following the war in Abyssinia and colonization part of North Africa in order to prevent children of mixed settler/Ethiopian etc. stock, but that was not a major plank in their ideology.
--- Charles Brown <cbrown at michiganlegal.org> wrote: Critical to most definitions of fascism is anti-communist ideology of fascists. My goodness, we haven't even touched on the essential role of racism in fascist ideology.
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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