Facts say they were. Try reading the facts.
https://troymedia.com/viewpoint/mussolini-fascism-more-left-than-right/
To quote political commentator Jonah Goldberg, “Mussolini did not move fascism from left to right; he moved it from socialist to populist.” In the process, the Italy he strove to create had much more in common with authoritarian socialism than with free markets and laissez-faire economics.
As far as the broader economy was concerned, Mussolini’s fascists were big time interventionists, developing “a huge, state-led industrial sector, which was especially important in banking, steel, shipping, armaments and the supply of hydroelectricity.” Adam Smith’s invisible hand wasn’t the altar at which they worshipped.
Then there’s the famous Mussolini declaration from 1928. By now well into his dictatorship period, he had this to say: “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”