People forget that the German Nazi Party were also 'socialist': they were national socialist. As such, they claimed to speak for 'the people', 'the people' of Germany - or, as they put it, 'the volk'.
South Africa's Economic Freedom Fighters are not made 'left wing' because they wear red overalls and claim to speak for 'the people', 'the people' of Africa - or, as they put it, 'the poor'. All parties claim to speak for 'the people', and none would say it is not on the side of the poor, least of all in autocracies.
The questions for South Africans of all colours are: what is the EFF's programme? Is it practical? Could its aim of economic freedom be attempted, let alone carried out, without coercion - without the loss of civil and political freedom? If it cannot, can the EFF be said to be democratic?
If the EFF are not left wing and not democratic, are they fascist?
Fascism takes many forms: it differed in Spain and Italy, in Eastern Europe and South America; it differs today in parts of the Arab world and Africa. Nazism remains only the most notorious version.
But all versions are more or less an irrational cult, appealing to the emotions, often the most basic like envy or revenge, not to logic or the pragmatic: Hitler's favourite word was 'fanatical'.