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A documentary on Italian Fascism.
A documentary on Italian Fascism.
This film basically shows how Mussolini and the fascists managed to take over Italy. It shows how the movement essentially came out of the trauma of the Great War, and the old conservative/bourgeois establishment and middle classes were terrified of a socialist revolution (especially after the October Revolution). How gangs of fascist thugs basically operated with de facto impunity because of the weak-willed liberal government and the silent consent of the ruling classes. How their only serious opposition, the socialist movement, was simply too small in number and were swallowed up and exterminated by the fascists.
Trotsky once said that fascism was basically capitalism in crisis. Mussolini was a far more devious individual then people give him credit for. Mussolini knew very well how to manipulate the fears of the bourgeois so that they'd bow to his every whim.....and Italy and the world would pay the price.
"I've never read Marx's Capital, but I've got the marks of capital all over my body." -Big Bill Haywood
"...Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor."- Thomas Jefferson
-=UTOPIA IS THE MORAL RIGHT OF HUMANITY=-
I admit I've fallen for thinking him a buffoon. Perhaps he was, on international politics relative to the more powerful players, but within Italy he was indeed effective, and able to exert colonial influences in North Africa. Maybe it's the stiff jackboot marches and way "Il Duce" sounds to American ears that makes him look foolish. And the difficulty he encountered subduing Ethiopians armed with spears when he had dive-bomber aircraft.
Mussolini injected into the right wing of the Spanish civil war precisely when Anthony Eden was pressuring liberal western governments to abstain. Second fiddle to Hitler, he nonetheless protected Germany's Mediterranean flank for quite a while.
Capsule history by Spartacus
http://spartacus-educational.com/SPitaly.htm
Last edited by Hatshepsut; 24th August 2015 at 02:27. Reason: add ref
Hr zj jSst r xAst Tn xmt n rmt "Why are you going to this land which is not known to the people?" (Urk. IV 324, 8-9)
Hitler had the real good shit for the Spanish nationalists, though. The Condor Legion and Nazi airpower (which dominated republican airpower) was much better than the crap Mussolini gave, which tended to be shitty tanks which were easily routed by superior Soviet tanks (nationalists had better planes; republicans had better tanks), as well as ground troops who, IIRC, did really poorly whenever they actually came into a shoot-out with the enemy, and lacked discipline (some of the Italians deserted over to the republican side IIRC)
Anyway, my favorite remark about fascism is probably Gilles Dauve's mention that fascism takes the traditional organizational methods and tactics (for example, the grassroots street movement) of the left, and subverts them for extremely reactionary ends.
"Win, lose or draw...long as you squabble and you get down, that's gangsta."
