Talk politics.

Pretty much. Whereas I'm sure many tyrants throughout history would have liked as much control as possible, it simply isn't possible to get to the level that, say, Hitler had without a modern state apparatus and modern technology. Likewise, lots of modern dictators are content to rule with an iron fist without building up some of the other, more intangible aspects of fascism (arguably, present-day China and many Latin American dictators have been this way). Now if you wanted to argue that Soviet Communism was a form of fascism, I think there is a lot more evidence for that line of thinking.