Why not!
The feature I like most to identify a particular form of authoritarianism as fascism is the cult of the past. Mussolini's and even Hitlers call back to the Roman Empire or the NAZI's love of ancient Germanness. More or less applies to Baathism's pan arab nationalism and WWII Japan's Emperial cult? Its both revolutionary and conservative in a sense.
After some more study, I would say that actually, short version:
1. That was a means to an end, rather than characteristic, and partially therefore, when you understand this point:
2. Japan DIDN'T turn fascist at any point between the world wars.
Long answer:
1. people really should read Mussolini's fascist manifesto, his autobiography, as well as Hitler's Mein Kampf to understand what fascism is and where it comes from. Because they tell you. At great length in Mussolini's case.
In both cases its roots kinda go back to Gustave Le Bon's "
Psychology of Crowds". Which basically laid the blueprint for populism. As he notes, politics towards the end of the 19'th century was no longer just something for the elites, but of who can mobilize a bigger crowd by telling them not necessarily the truth, but whatever simplistic emotional myth they want to hear.
Also that when someone starts to identify with a crowd, their thinking actually starts to bend to fit the crowd opinion. Which will come in to be important later. You don't just want to tell those guys those ideas, you have to convince them they're a part of a specific "in" crowd, and not with some "out" crowd(s).
Both Hitler and Mussolini worked hard to figure out how to best pack their ideas for uninformed crowds. Again, they'll tell you that themselves.
But so far we're merely at populism, not yet anywhere near fascism. Other movements used that kind of demagoguery to their own ends, e.g., Marxism. They defined their "in" crowd as the proletariat.
And here we're slowly getting to the difference that defines what fascism IS. (And incidentally why anyone telling you it's a kind of socialism because of the S in NSDAP is not particularly informed.)
Fascism actually rose in opposition to rampaging socialism, and its divisiveness. Also, it was NOT a conservative movement. In fact it was also in opposition of the old aristocratic conservatives, which just divided the country in another way. Or to the old European style of liberalism, which emphasized individualism, so essentially divided the country into a bunch of crowds of 1.
What both Mussolini and Hitler wanted was a myth that united the whole country. Their myth and crowd definition was based around national identity for Mussolini, and around ethnic identity for Hitler. Basically stop defining yourself as proletarian or burgeois, blue blood or pleb, etc, and just think yourself as Italian or respectively German.
Basically they wanted their crowd to be the whole country, or as close as possible or convenient, and the myth they sell to that crowd being the greatness of the nation or respectively ethnic group. It's ultimate populism, really.
The glorifying the past and whatnot was just a means to inflame that nationalistic spirit.
2. Japan DIDN'T turn fascist in the 30's, because basically they had been proto-fascist ever since the Meiji Restoration. It was more like a long slide into the full blown real thing than any particular moment when they switch over
