What was the appeal of fascism in post WWI Europe?

People were afraid of chaos. Countries like Italy and Spain, which had very weak republican traditions, craved a strong government. Both countries had an active and violent anarchist parties which attacked churches and bombed opera houses. The ruling classes were terrified of unions, and felt that government in the hands of the people would destroy everything beautiful about the native country. The Church was especially far to the right at this period. Fascists pretended to care greatly for the spiritual things of life, and emphasized moral purity - in the case of Germany, to a hitherto unimaginably fantatic extent. Fascists pretended to be the wave of the future, and exalted technology. Fascism crowed about the supreme virtues of one's native country, and embraced a fanatical nationalism. It also promised to eliminate all the problems brought about by weak, ineffective, divided bourgeois institutions. And in Germany, Fascism told Germans that they were the superior race.

The Fascists were willing to fight the dirty reds in the square and the streets, they HATED communists. Yes, Hitler and Mussolini rose to power primarily on the fear of communism that arose following the collapse of the Russian empire and the rise of the Soviet Union and wealthy business men and democratic countries funded the Fascists with weapons and money to battle the communist threat.