Fascism Leading the Charge

While the values of fascism and communism are different, they both work to attain the same goal through different means. Both are successful in gaining allegiance because they seek to increase material/social/political wealth for people who have nothing. Thus, a follower has nothing to lose and everything to gain. A certain tacit promise is made that convinces people to join fascist or communist governments. A fascist government asks that the people give everything to their nation with the promise that later, when fascism has taken the world, all the people will have more. Fascism works using the idea that alone, one is powerless, while strength and power can be found in unity. Communism, on the other hand, begs dedication so that all may be shared amongst the followers of communism. Alone a single person may have nothing, but when all property is united, that same person may be given the world. In this way, Fascism and Communism are different answers to the same question of political decline and poverty, and were made so successful because both rose during the depression and after WWI, a time when everyone was poor and sought a means to better their station in life. One takes the path of uniting to conquer and become rich with land and power, while the other chooses to consolidate all the wealth of a country, redistributing the riches of the higher classes to everyone. Both are extreme, but one errs on the side of excess, the other on minimalism.
However, for capitalists or those seeking to raise the fortunes(which is generally the majority of a society), only one of these would seem the poor choice. For this reason, people tended to be more fearful of communism than of fascism. Ironically, the rise of communism was the empowering force for fascist regimes even though both were in direct opposition to one another. Since so many were afraid of the alternative, they took the side of fascism (seeing the need to chose one or the other, not neither). Fascism grew, partially because it promised an end to communism. As the lesser of the two evils, it was given power freely, while the communists in Russia had to trick and fight their way to the top.
The idea of choosing them on this basis alone is sensible, for in many other ways they are extremely similar. As seen in Nazi Germany and Civil War era Russia, both put stake in public violence and terror. This gives way to authoritarian systems that keep the people on their toes. Since communism and fascism share these similarities in practice, it makes little difference to the day to day life of civilians, which they choose. So decisions to join whichever party must be based on ideology. It might be said then that fear of minimalistic communism and aggressive fascism both, led a terrified people to support fascist ideals, despite their own misgivings on the matter.