“As for the explanation that fascism is a last desperate attempt of capitalism to delay the socialist revolution, it simply is not true. It is not true that ‘big business’ promoted fascism. On the contrary, both in Italy and in Germany the proportion of fascist sympathizers and backers was smallest in the industrial and financial classes. It is equally untrue that ‘big business’ profits from fascism; of all the classes it probably suffers most from totalitarian economics and Wehrwirtschaft.”

— Peter F. Drucker

Source: 1930s- 1950s, The End of Economic Man (1939), p. 7

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Peter F. Drucker 180

American business consultant 1909–2005

Walter Rodney book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Source: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), p. 310.

“Some big businessmen did contribute to the Nazi election funds but German capitalism cannot be regarded, on the evidence, as having collectively brought fascism to power in any direct sense. Fascism in Germany was a mass movement brought to power through collusion with a bankrupt but traditional elite, not as the puppet of big business.”

Richard Overy (1947) British historian

Source: The Nazi economic recovery 1931-1938 (1996), p. 55

“Fascism never served the interests of Italian business... there is no credible evidence that Fascism controlled the nation's economy for the benefit of the 'possessing classes.”

A. James Gregor (1929–2019) American political scientist

Source: The Search for Neofascism: The Use and Abuse of Social Science, (2006), p. 7

“The Social-Democratic leaders glossed over and concealed from the masses the true class nature of fascism, and did not call them to the struggle against the increasingly reactionary measures of the bourgeoisie. They bear great historical responsibility for the fact that, at the decisive moment of the fascist offensive, a large section of the working people of Germany and of a number of other fascist countries failed to recognize in fascism the most bloodthirsty monster of finance capital, their most vicious enemy, and that these masses were not prepared to resist it.”

Georgi Dimitrov (1882–1949) Bulgarian politician

Source: The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism, Ch. 1.

“From 1920 onward, [Mussolini] depicted Italy as a ‘proletarian’ nation exploited by hostile ‘plutocratic’ countries determined to deny her her rightful place under the sun. The true class struggle, according to Fascist doctrine, was the struggle between nations. Fascism strove to surmount narrow class allegiances: all classes had to subordinate their private interests to those of the nation and collaborate against the external enemy.”

Richard Pipes (1923–2018) American historian

Source: Property and Freedom (1999), p. 219

“No, fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over finance capital. Fascism is the power of finance capital itself.”

Georgi Dimitrov (1882–1949) Bulgarian politician

Ch. 1, The Class Character of Fascism https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm#s2.
The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism