Fascism also tends to promote and exploit the grievances of “the common man,” portraying society as the theater of a ceaseless conflict – a class war – between oppressor and oppressed, victimizer and victim. Consequently, identity politics is central to fascism.
Yet another hallmark of fascism is its propensity to bring forth powerful, charismatic, even deified figures who are viewed as uniquely capable – along with their hand-picked advisers – of leading nations to restored or new-found greatness. Thus the cult of personality historically has been a central element of fascism. (The same has been true of Communist leaders such as Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, and Castro.)
The economics of fascism are collectivist, socialist and redistributionist – supremely hostile to free-market capitalism and wealth inequalities. Indeed, fascism is closely related to communism in both theory and practice. The chief difference between the two is that fascism is rooted in nationalism and seeks to create a socialist utopia within the confines of a particular country's borders; thus the Nazis, for instance, embraced “National Socialism.” Communism, by contrast, seeks to transcend national boundaries and promote a worldwide proletariat revolution, where the foot soldiers are bound together not by a common nationality but by their membership in the same economic class. The communist position was articulated in Karl Marx's famous exhortation in the Communist Manifesto: “Workers of the world, unite!”