<P> There were a number of influences on fascism from the Renaissance era in Europe . Niccolò Machiavelli is known to have influenced Italian Fascism, particularly his promotion of the absolute authority of the state . Machiavelli rejected all existing traditional and metaphysical assumptions of the time--especially those associated with the Middle Ages--and asserted as an Italian patriot that Italy needed a strong and all - powerful state led by a vigorous and ruthless leader who would conquer and unify Italy . Mussolini saw himself as a modern - day Machiavellian and wrote an introduction to his honorary doctoral thesis for the University of Bologna--"Prelude to Machiavelli". Mussolini professed that Machiavelli's "pessimism about human nature was eternal in its acuity . Individuals simply could not be relied on voluntarily to' obey the law, pay their taxes and serve in war' . No well - ordered society could want the people to be sovereign", Most dictators of the 20th century mimicked Mussolini's admiration for Machiavelli and "Stalin...saw himself as the embodiment of Machiavellian vertù". Lenin was "very much influenced by The Prince as well, keeping a copy of it on his nightstand", as did Hitler . </P> <P> English political theorist Thomas Hobbes in his work Leviathan (1651) created the ideology of absolutism that advocated an all - powerful absolute monarchy to maintain order within a state . Absolutism was an influence on fascism . Absolutism based its legitimacy on the precedents of Roman law including the centralized Roman state and the manifestation of Roman law in the Catholic Church . Though fascism supported the absolute power of the state, it opposes the idea of absolute power being in the hands of a monarch and opposes the feudalism that was associated with absolute monarchies . </P> <P> During the Enlightenment, a number of ideological influences arose that would shape the development of fascism . The development of the study of universal histories by Johann Gottfried Herder resulted in Herder's analysis of the development of nations, Herder developed the term Nationalismus ("nationalism") to describe this cultural phenomenon . At this time nationalism did not refer to the political ideology of nationalism that was later developed during the French Revolution . Herder also developed the theory that Europeans are the descendants of Indo - Aryan people based on language studies . Herder argued that the Germanic peoples held close racial connections with the ancient Indians and ancient Persians, who he claimed were advanced peoples possessing a great capacity for wisdom, nobility, restraint and science . Contemporaries of Herder utilized the concept of the Aryan race to draw a distinction between what they deemed "high and noble" Aryan culture versus that of "parasitic" Semitic culture and this anti-Semitic variant view of Europeans' Aryan roots formed the basis of Nazi racial views . Another major influence on fascism came from the political theories of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel . Hegel promoted the absolute authority of the state and said "nothing short of the state is the actualization of freedom" and that the "state is the march of God on earth". </P> <P> The French Revolution and its political legacy had a major influence upon the development of fascism . Fascists view the French Revolution as a largely negative event that resulted in the entrenchment of liberal ideas such as liberal democracy, anticlericalism and rationalism . Opponents of the French Revolution initially were conservatives and reactionaries, but the Revolution was also later criticized by Marxists for its bourgeois character and racist nationalists who opposed its universalist principles . Racist nationalists in particular condemned the French Revolution for granting social equality to "inferior races" such as Jews . Mussolini condemned the French Revolution for developing liberalism, scientific socialism and liberal democracy, but also acknowledged that fascism extracted and utilized all the elements that had preserved those ideologies' vitality and that fascism had no desire to restore the conditions that precipitated the French Revolution . Though fascism opposed core parts of the Revolution, fascists supported other aspects of it, Mussolini declared his support for the Revolution's demolishment of remnants of the Middle Ages such as tolls and compulsory labour upon citizens and he noted that the French Revolution did have benefits in that it had been a cause of the whole French nation and not merely a political party . Most importantly, the French Revolution was responsible for the entrenchment of nationalism as a political ideology--both in its development in France as French nationalism and in the creation of nationalist movements particularly in Germany with the development of German nationalism by Johann Gottlieb Fichte as a political response to the development of French nationalism . The Nazis accused the French Revolution of being dominated by Jews and Freemasons and were deeply disturbed by the Revolution's intention to completely break France away from its past history in what the Nazis claimed was a repudiation of history that they asserted to be a trait of the Enlightenment . Though the Nazis were highly critical of the Revolution, Hitler in Mein Kampf said that the French Revolution is a model for how to achieve change that he claims was caused by the rhetorical strength of demagogues . Furthermore, the Nazis idealized the levée en masse (mass mobilization of soldiers) that was developed by French Revolutionary armies and the Nazis sought to use the system for their paramilitary movement . </P>

Who said nothing short of state is the actualization of freedom