'What Life Was Like In Fascist Italy' Benito Mussolini, IL Duce. 'The Dictator's Playbook' PBS

Last edited Mon Sep 12, 2022, 02:43 PM - Edit history (3)

- Weird History (11 mins). - Ed. The period between WWI and WWII brought about major political changes in Italy, yet it's fairly uncommon to discuss what actually went on in Benito Mussolini's fascist state in the 1920s and 1930s. Mussolini implemented policies and reforms that led to a wave of censorship, nationalist propaganda and widespread militarism, making daily life in the fascist state a tenuous existence.

- Fascist Party Headquarters in Rome. - Elections - Vote 'Si' (Yes) images & portraits of Mussolini were prominent on buildings.
- Mass Propaganda; public architecture celebrated militarism, extreme devotion to country, superiority of the Italian people, return to glories of the past and ancient Rome. 'Mussolini Modern' style of art.
- 1922, 'The March on Rome' - 30,000 Blackshirts army paramilitary forces were used to evoke terror. Mussolini demanded to be made Prime Minister and gained power. The Strongman leader, authoritarian.
- Nationalism, Anti Democracy. Devotion to Country, Superiority of Italian People. Colonial Imperialism, racism, brutality, Ethiopia, No. Africa.

- Blackshirts Fascist Motto, 'ME NE FREGO' - 'I Don't Care.' - Fascist paramilitary forces worked to rid the opposition - socialists, labor leaders & peasant leaders. Enemies including socialists, communists & anarchists were eliminated. - IL Duce and Religion, Catholicism.
- Antisemitism: 1938 racial laws passed mainly targeted Jews; 1943 arrests, deportation of Jews to Nazi concentration camps began.
- To root out adversaries, Mussolini also used a Secret Police known as 'OVRA,' Organization for Vigilance & Repression of Anti- Fascists.
- Children and Propaganda: youth groups were indoctrinated into fascist ideology, - 'IL Saluto Romano,' the Roman Salute.

- State censorship and control of the Press and Media in Italy - publications, bookstores, newspapers, radio and film.
- Mass Rallies and Radio, a powerful new technology were used effectively by the fascist state.
- Ideal 'Warrior' Men; Motherhood, Family, Domesticity. Produce children; women who didn't conform or were deviant sent to asylums.
- Gay men were classified as degenerates, exiled and later returned to Italy and placed under house arrest.
- Did the Trains really run on time in fascist Italy?
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- PBS, 'BENITO MUSSOLINI: THE DICTATOR'S PLAYBOOK.' EPISODE 3

- 20th Century Pioneer Dictator, Creator of the Fascist Movement. Anti Democracy, Nationalism, Authoritarian Rule, 'Strongman' Leader.

He’s been dismissed as a buffoon, a small-time tyrant who ruled in the shadow of Hitler and Stalin. But in the world of 20th century dictators, Benito Mussolini was a pioneer. He created fascism, a movement that would plunge most of Europe into darkness. From undermining judges to indoctrinating children, he pioneered key tactics that other dictators would use to seize power. Mussolini experimented with socialism as a young man, but as Europe was consumed by World War I he was drawn to nationalism. Wounded in the war, he came home in 1917.
- Mussolini began to formulate the fascist ideology, which celebrated military might, extreme devotion to country and the superiority of the Italian people. Fascism also glorified ancient Rome, with the promise to return the country to the glories of the past. -

- The Road to Dictatorship:
Mussolini built fascism into a movement, complete with a paramilitary force: the blackshirts. 30,000 blackshirts marched on Rome in 1922, seizing government buildings and train stations along the way. Already a member of parliament, Mussolini demanded to be made prime minister—and Italy’s king capitulated. Once in power, Mussolini began a systematic effort to weaken the country’s fragile democracy. A former journalist, Mussolini was a gifted writer with an instinct for playing on people’s dreams and fears. He connected with the public at mass rallies—and through the power of a new technology, radio. Dig Deeper: Mussolini and the Jews of Italy, Under pressure from Hitler, Mussolini deported thousands of Jews to concentration camps. But years earlier, Mussolini’s regime was already passing anti-Semitic laws.

Italian Fascism glorified the notion of a "pure Italian," evoking an ideal world where men were warriors and women were devoted mothers. This vision was used to justify a series of racial laws, begun in 1938, that mostly targeted the Jewish population. Jews were prohibited from owning property, banned from professions like medicine and law, and prohibited from joining the army. They were not allowed to marry non-Jews or enroll in schools or universities. The Fascist government even revoked citizenship from Jews who had been in the country for a short time, endangering thousands of refugees who had fled to Italy from Nazi Germany. In 1943, arrests and deportations began. And ultimately, around 10,000 Jews were deported from Italy to Nazi concentration camps.

*WATCH* https://www.pbs.org/tpt/dictators-playbook/episodes/benito-mussolini/



- Trailer, 'Benito Mussolini, The Dictator's Playbook,' PBS.
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- 'What to Know About the Origins of Fascism’s Brutal Ideology.' TIME, 2019.

When Benito Mussolini debuted the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, the precursor to his fascist party, on Mar. 23, 1919, in Milan, he wasn’t inventing the idea of violent authoritarianism. But he put a name on a new and terrible breed of it. Under his leadership, squads of militants attacked, beat & killed fellow Italians; later, once he had become the authoritarian ruler of Italy, he oversaw brutality in Ethiopia, an alliance with Hitler & the persecution of Italy’s Jewish population & others, among other crimes. Yet even a century later, during a new era of strongmen, his idea remains sadly powerful. “Fascism is a disease,” former U.S. Sec. of State Madeleine Albright told TIME last year, “and there are symptoms. So I think it’s important to warn about that.”

To better understand the rise and fall — and rise again — of fascism, TIME spoke to Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on first fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and a professor of History and Italian Studies at New York University. - What is fascism? Fascism is a movement that promotes the idea of a forcibly monolithic, regimented nation under the control of an autocratic ruler. The word fascism comes from fascio, the Italian word for bundle, which in this case represents bundles of people. Its origins go back to Ancient Rome, when the fasces was a bundle of wood with an ax head, carried by leaders.

On March 23, 1919, the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento — a group that grew out of a number of earlier movements that had also used the image of the fascio in their names — met for the first time in Piazza San Sepolcro in Milan. At this rally, Mussolini said that membership in the new group “commits all fascists to sabotaging the candidacies of the neutralists of all parties by any means necessary.”
× × “Mussolini thought that democracy was a failed system. - He thought that liberty of expression and liberty of parties was a sham, and that fascism would organize people under state power,” Ben-Ghiat says. “Their idea was you would be freer because you wouldn’t have any class consciousness. You’re just supposed to worship the nation. It’s nation over class.”

The corollary of that belief was the idea that anything that might impede national unity had to be gotten rid of, and violently. In fact, violence was seen as beneficial to society. And “society” was not a loosely defined idea. Rather, Mussolini & those who came after him had very specific ideas about who got to be part of the nation. It followed that those who did not fit the mold were seen as disruptive to that unity, & thus subject to violence. “You can look up definitions of fascism & often, if they’re not about Hitler, race won’t be in there,” Ben-Ghiat says. “That’s something that often gets left out, especially regarding fascist Italy. There was this idea that Hitler was anti-Semitic & Mussolini wasn’t, but it’s about a larger concept of race. Mussolini was an imperialist, so he used colonialism to [abuse] people of color.

The fear of white decline was a huge part of it. Women were supposed to go have a lot of babies to increase the white race. A lot of old-fashioned explanations of fascism don’t talk about that.”...https://time.com/5556242/what-is-fascism/