If you really insist on counting the Austria of this times as a fascist state, then "fascist" is not really a clear definition of any kind of government anymore.
This is a problem altogether. The various incarnations of fascism are so different and so often unrelated that 'fascism' as a term has become interchangeable with tyranny, dictatorship or authoritarianism; any discussion of fascism as an ideology outside of its particular national form is useless, it becomes nebulous and difficult to articulate. Mussolini was lots of things, and Italian fascism is its own thing. I'm with you, and I agree that Dolfuss' government was fascist only in the loosest sense, like Franco's government in many ways.
