Hitler wasn't elected, his party had a minority winning, which he turned into an absolute winning. But himself, running to President, lost the elections.
Mussolini was indeed elected, and looking at Italy today, he would probably win the elections again, at least the elected parties doesn't fall too much apart of him.

But this isn't the question, the question is about defining an ideology. Have a specific and strict sense of what we can call Fascism (ideology) or fascism (insult).

Democracy has its weaknesses - candidate suppression, vote suppression, plain and old rig and so on - , actually, like sir Winston Churchill, I don't like it, I accept it because I can't think of nothing better. If you put a bunch of burglars voting the only thing they would be voting about will be on ways to rob their victims.

I think of Fascism more as the opposition of Liberalism (European Liberalism, not be confused with US flavor), rather than communism. The only way to have communism as you portrait it is by direct democracy, otherwise as long as you've a communist leader, you no longer have any communism, but a red flavor of Fascism.