Never forget time and place, Mussolini was adored by the "intelligentsia", a large part of British and American commerce saw Fascism as the only alternative to the spread of Communism in Europe.
My old friend told me of pitched battles in the East End of London between Fascists and Communists public support was split pretty evenly between the factions.

A different time a different place.....If we had been beaten history would have been written by the victors.

If these people and their children had held up the "closed fist" a different crowd would be knocking on their coffins.