No Stupid Questions

I don’t think capitalism is necessarily at fault, nor must the working/middle classes be struggling for fascism to emerge. If anything, quite the opposite. It is the better off countries that end up turning fascist. All fascist countries are/were first world countries, in various states of advanced development.

That's not right, at least not for the fascist regimes in Europe that emerged prior to WW2. The countries where it happened (specifically Germany/Italy/Spain) had all seen civil unrest or even civil war in the recent past, they were hit hard by the global financial crisis in the twenties and had high unemployment and widespread poverty. This was the very thing the fascists used to ingratiate themselves to the public at large, by creating jobs through massive public building and rearmament projects.

By the way "first world countries" is post-WW2 terminology and didn't originally have a connotation of superior economic status, but was referring strictly to ideological alignment. Whether a country belonged to the capitalist/communist/unaligned block in international politics during the cold war.

Capitalisms' unsustainable model of infinite growth requires something like imperialism to keep going, and even if you could point out alternative venues for capital acquisition, it's still what people in power want, since it gives them more than just fuel for capitalism, but also more power. Countries and companies that do not rely on imperialism directly, most often rely in others that do. While it's not entirely futile to discuss whenever that has to be the case in theorethical capitalist solution, it is the case in one we're living under, and since it's the ruling class of hyper-wealthy that make decisions about the worlds future and current state of affairs is result of those decisions, it is the system we have to deal with. Unless, you know, we bring out the guilottines and start over, but I don't see much point in retrying capitalism to see if it won't lead us down on the path to facism again.

Fascism is also on the rise because of improved technology for thought control / propaganda / public relations / advertising. Social media lets the worst of humanity band together and pool their energy.

But wealth inequality, both worse effective quality of life for the poor and increased economic power by the wealthy is I believe a main driver. Technology is just the tool. The ultra wealthy and their lackeys today have more power than ever and are more isolated and inundated with ideology that is basically insane.

I wonder if there are studies that show correlations between quality of life and fascism in different nations.

Authoritarianism and personality cult in both cases.

As for the rest, it differed drastically.

Nazi Germany was a reactionary ultra-nationalist ultra-militarist right-wing state that pursued a neverending war to make "living room" for Germans at the expense of everybody else and death to Jews and Gypsies.

Soviet Union was built on the premise of equality and egalitarian society that was only militant against the bourgeoisie. It was built around internationalism and peace of nations.

Yes, it should be noted that during the war Stalin has ordered to move some national groups that were "strategically likely" to join Nazis away from the frontline, which is, let's say, not great by modern humanitarian standards. But exterminating them was never his goal, and they were very much alive and returned to their homeland afterwards. Quite a contrast with Nazis actually shooting or poisoning everyone remotely Jewish, leaving them to a painful death.

I was thinking of Israel actually. I don't think the comparison between the Nazis and the Soviets is apt. The ideological motivations are quite different. And it's a typical Nazi talking point to point at the Soviets and try to argue that they were worse.