Study Curve

Fascism and communism are on the total opposite ends of the political spectrum. It can be said that communism is far left while fascism is far right. Both ideologies reject capitalism, as well as religious institutions. Fascism has the element of subduing and incorporating private run corporations for its benefit, while communism overtakes (nationalizes) these corporations and runs them by central state planning. The concept of land ownership is totally different as well. Communism rejects the private ownership of land, while fascism tolerates it as long as it brings in profits for the regime.

However, what has become common to both of these ideologies in modern day practice are the suppression of individual human rights, as well as the rise of a strong charismatic leader that centralizes state power around himself. Fvdesign is correct in stating that true communism has never materialized so the world is unable to truly assess the practical rather than theoretical differences between the two ideologies. It can be said that the communism that the world has seen so far has been thinly disguised dictatorships.

I would say that the main ideological difference between fascism and communism is role of the state. Fascism emphasizes the idea of the state, the subordination of the individual for the state, and emphasizes national unity (usually around some ideal/cause). True communism (which we have never seen on a large scale), emphasizes a stateless and classless society with common ownership of the means of production. To simplify, fascism has the state and the people, while communism just has the people.