The early Fascist party was primarily comprised of ex-socialists and syndicalists who harbored strong anti-capitalist sentiments. Now, I know that many of their alliances with the establishment elite were pragmatic rather than ideological, but I've always been curious just how much of this relationship effected the party ideologically. During the first few years the party privatized industries that were previously public, and even advocated against unemployment benefits, both of these things they would later walk back. The Fascists also always maintained an anti-conservative sentiment but also accommodated conservative elites. My question being, where these pragmatic alliances representative of a genuine shift in ideology or were they merely done out of political necessity? Did Mussolini always intend on establishing a more radical economy and eventually doing away with the conservative elites once he no longer needed them? Also, in the 20s Mussolini spoke a lot about how the movement was rooted in Italys aryan spirit and he spoke about white birth rates, yet in the 30s he seemed far more indifferent regarding race, then in Ethiopia he instated racial segregation as to not taint Italian blood, despite the impression of previously not caring about racial purity. Some clarification on this would be nice.
>>18579547>but I've always been curious just how much of this relationship effected the party ideologically.The tl;dr is that syndicalist principles were parodied by concentrating all labour representation into the Fascist party apparatus. It's the model Hitler would copy.
Mussolini was a fool by trying to ally with bourgeoisie, the monarchy and the clergy. They backstabbed him the moment it was convenient to do so.
>>18579565How different things might have turned out if he had followed D'Annunzio and Marinetti, rejected tradition, and established a Futurist government that emphasized syndicalism, violence, homosexuality, Faustian spirit, and technological progress.
He was an opportunist who told people what they wanted to hear. His actual policies were driven largely by pragmatism from the perspective of a detached ruler surrounded by sycophants who ironically were telling him what he wanted to hear.It might be compared with German which inherited government departments and corporations on par with the France, the UK and US, which Adolf did not mess with too much besides the removal of jews and political opponents. Italy had none of this, it was closer to a banana republic with a "system of patronage". They had many successful small companies but orchestrating all these together on a large scale was difficult with the level of inefficiency and corruption, as seen in the war where they had some innovative fighter planes and frogmen, in this case more advanced than the allies, though to little effect.
>>18579575Do you think Mussolini genuinely aspired to accomplish this and was merely restrained by the establishment and forced to compromise? He sort of seemed to insinuate that during the RSI period.
>>18579580He didn't have the same kind of iron will and sheer ruthlessness like Stalin and Mao or even Hitler. He compromised because it was the easy way out. It was also his downfall because almost no one believed his RSI will actually deliver this pro-worker, social justice and truly Italian rejuvenation that early fascism promised.
>>18579602I do think it's funny how compared to the other dictators of the era he was relatively soft, yet I feel like there is more stigma around speaking positively about Mussolini than there is around Stalin or Mao.
>>18579616He's certainly not seen as the ultimate evil like Hitler is, at least not in Europe.
>>18579617In America he's hardly ever spoken about aside when speaking about Hitler, and even then he's usually treated as a footnote and relegated to "the guy who invented Fascism and was Hitlers sidekick during the war." It's a shame because I find the Pre-World War 2 era of Fascist Italy fascinating, and Mussolini was a fascinating individual, plus maybe if Americans were taught about Mussolini and the actual origins of Fascism they wouldn't have such a retarded understanding of it.
>>18579616Fascism just became the boogeyman of the post-war order, so symphatising with Mussolini naturally is more hereticsl than the right wing Juntas and Socialist dictatorships of the Cold War.It's not even about cold facts, you can tell someone Pol Pot killed a 1/3 of his own people and they will react much less emotional if you wave his flag than the Italian fascist flag.
>>18579547The thing was that a lot of the privatisations looked like:>Yeh give us money and it'll be private>Thanks btw this man here, Luigi Cacciatore is a war veteran and a blackshirt, he has a statutory privilege allowing him to overrule any decisions in the company, blackshirts know where you live in case you try to change any of itFascists cared about who makes the de facto big decisions in the company, not some meaningless legal questions of who owns it. Mussolini himself was a man of compromise and in a sense a deradicalising element of the Italian Fascist Party.
>>18579547>My question being, where these pragmatic alliances representative of a genuine shift in ideology or were they merely done out of political necessity?Pragmatic political necessity. But I think the main reason is that the people who supported fascism changed as it grew. It was more left-seeming when it was smaller, then it really grew its ranks with people who feared the socialists and wanted to do something about them, and who were more radical about this than Mussolini was. Parties tend to adapt to their social base and that can change. It's also how the Bolsheviks changed during the Russian civil war and with the rise of Stalin, it was really because a lot of the original core social base of support died fighting in the war.And Mussolini was highly opportunistic, but in a highly weird way because his public persona was very fiery. Usually when people think of an opportunistic politician they think of a robot like Hillary Clinton and not someone taking the guise of an extreme ideologue. There was also a period of 6-18 months of full-blown terror with raids and constant murder while the fascists were talking about how they were moderates who bring peace, then after the consolidation they became a lot softer. The escalating radical violence of the Nazis was something people didn't really expect.Also if you want an ironic twist after watching the T.V. show, the communist who killed Florio wasn't killed by fascists, no, he was later killed by Stalin in the Soviet Union.
>>18579803It’s funny you mention that. I always found it interesting how Italo Balbo was one of the more radical and extreme Blackshirts but eventually became a more moderate Fascist who often clashed with Mussolini.
>>18579547>My question being, where these pragmatic alliances representative of a genuine shift in ideology or were they merely done out of political necessity?kinda both. I've come to the definition of fascism as Socialism (collective ownership of industries) but that embraces class cooperations and a mythical founding as opposed to an atheist mindset. Going off of this, class collaboration and collective ownership results in this sort of mixed economy but the real goal for Fascist is really just whatever works for them. Unlike Capitalism or Communism which place the economic model as the core that the ideology is built around, Fascist embrace "The State" as the centerpiece with something like the economic model being second. iirc Hitler explained his outlook as basically being a Social Democrat that rejected the internationalism and embraced German Blood and Soil nationalism instead.
>>18579806I thought the show was going to be cringe at first because Benito talks to the camera, but I thought it was a lot of fun. I loved the blackshirts shouting and gesticulating at each other in Italian. What an amazing language it is, it's like a fucking musical:https://youtu.be/uoA3GyC1UUkBut my sense of it is that this kind of thing starts out as more radical than the left, because the socialists are fake and gay (NOT revolutionary) while also still having one foot in the left, but the left is also un-patriotic and Mussolini believes this, and he's trying to recruit these soldiers into his movement. Then you get these right-wing people just joining up en masse and pushing it in their direction with a considerable amount of tension with the top guy who lets them out and reigns them in like he's playing an accordion.You also see "normal" political parties undergo shifts because their base changes. This is also true for party shifts in the United States, like how younger urban professionals came to fill up the Democratic Party but now they're getting squeezed by rent so they're socialists (!) now (sorta).
>>18579821Yep, one of my central annoyances about discussion of fascism today is when people try to understand it through its economic policies, eg. stuff like ”it was right wing because they privatized”, ”it was left wing because they had social programs X and nazis called themselves socialist” etc etc.All that fails to capture the fact that while fascism is an extremely vibe-based ideology, it has a surprisingly pragmatic view of economy: it’s seen as a tool to fulfill the national ambitions, not the end on itself. You quite literally can’t understand how fascist thinks by asking how he would tax things X and Y, for that has nothing to do with his ultimate goals.
>>18579846It also reflects how people *today* tend to view politics, but that's just... not what these people were on. They might not have used this phrase exactly but "we must save our nation from imminent destruction" sounds closer to the mark. Also the only way to do that is with beautiful ideals and heroism and faith. A people who had not yet become a nation who set about on a sacred mission like tales of ancient Greece! Honor and glory to the martyrs! TO BATTLEPeople act like they were just out to build more affordable housing or something lol
>>18579846I think the fact that Fascism is inherently nationalist also has a lot to do with it. Mussolini did say at one point that Fascism is not for export. I think some people tend to overstate in the other direction and say Fascism had absolutely no doctrine or consistent beliefs at all, its just that every Fascist movement emphasized certain aspects more than others or added certain qualities that reflected their specific country. You can’t mimic or transplant one fascist movement into another country because the movement itself has to reflect the culture and conditions of the country.
