It seems like now is a good time to have some insight discussion on how the first fascist party was formed, and most importantly took power. My uncle was a black shirt for Mussolini and since I was a child explained every aspect of the takeover of Italy. Hitler and many world leaders have repeated this process since.
We should start with discussing Marx, he defined three types of economic systems. Capitalism where people owned their property and resources then distributed them how they felt. Socialism where a leader or party owned all resources and distributed them how they felt. Communism where everyone owned everything and each product produced was equally owned. Since his revelation he discussed Capitalism as a bad thing because he believed that people were not able to be charitable and therefor were consistently stealing from those who had little. He believed in separation of people by class, so the rich would only become rich by stealing from the poor who would stay poor. Oddly his solution was a class war where the poor would outright over take the rich and essentially take control of the means of distribution. During World War One, this predicted war of poor verses rich didn’t happen, in fact Mussolini observed that the poor joined the rich and fought for national identity. Mussolini joined the Italian Communist party after the war, and then moved into the Italian Socialist party. He saw some major flaws in both groups primarily around their beliefs in the placement of the worker in either system. Mussolini saw the failures in both of the Marxist movements in his country. Seeing how Russia had come along, he had a growing fear of a radical movement engaging his country without solving any of the social problems that existed. He also saw no way that either system could spawn or create a growth that he felt should happen and lead to the restart of the ancient Roman Empire of which he felt was Italy’s birthright. Mussolini started his own party, and began his own vision of a perfect socialism. In his writing he promotes gender equality, racial equality, and financial equality. Unlike previous Marxist groups he envisioned the people and their labor as a product that could be used and controlled by the party. He saw the failures of the new democracy that had formed and suggested that the country should be run by a single political party, where officials were approved by the party, and the people could elect those officials to government positions. Mussolini started by gathering two separate groups of followers, the Fasce and the Black shirts. The Fasce were older people who were involved with many industries and political groups. They swore an allegiance with Mussolini, supplied him with intelligence and money. The purpose of the Fasce was that they would be the ruling body if Mussolini could take government control. The black shirts were mostly young men in the country. Having just been through a world war many teenagers were left without fathers. Through his writings Mussolini was able to become a star like figure and the black shirts were able to recruit members into local gangs. The absence of father’s is the key to forming gangs, and since the education of the country was subpar, the indoctrination of these youths gave his street presence a large amount of power. He was able to take control of the media for years prior to his establishing the party. Prior to world war one he was a prominent journalist and exquisite speaker. Before the 1919 establishment of the party he already had fasce supporters at almost every publisher in Italy. At a time before TV he controlled the media before he even had his plans in place. By the point that Mussolini had started the party and openly announced it, his articles had already gained favor of many Italians. Additionally smear campaigns had been initiated about every other political party, and the heads of state. People were already aligned with him prior to the start of the party, and other groups were looked down on. In the early days, prior to the official forming of the party, Mussolini’s black shirts also infiltrated Union rallies and demonstrations. They usually would dress in attire to fit in, and attempt to whip up the crowd into violence and riots. In the months leading up to the establishment of the party, he wrote many articles that were widespread throughout Italy expressing his thoughts. One of these that I find most interesting is entitled, “Medicine for all is a right not a privilege” which appeared in a late 1918 magazine. The ideas he laid out in that article seem coincidentally much like the American Medicaid System. Through these articles he was able to convince the people that his ideas could make life easier. When Mussolini started the party they came out with a public manifesto. Starting with voting it demanded women the right to vote as well as open the ability to vote to all people over the age of 18. It suggests an eight hour work day, minimum wage, expansion of union powers, and lowering the retirement age to 55. It also suggested nationalization of businesses and a large growth of the nation’s infrastructure. Represented as well is workers participation in industry, a common theme among modern socialists. It advocates for a wealth tax, a confiscation of all religious property, and the destructuring of the church. To quote him, “Granted that the 19th century was the century of marxism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the 20th century must also be the century of marxism, liberalism, democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the Right, a Fascist century. If the 19th century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the ‘collective’ century, and therefore the century of the State.” The core idea of the Fascist party would be a democratic single party socialist republic. He planned on spreading the nation of Italy as far as the previous Roman Empire and felt it was his nations birthright. Once the party was established Mussolini tightened his grip on the media, requiring friends to write up propaganda articles. The black shirts had larger gatherings and rallies that they kept quite peaceful while attending other parties gatherings and causing mayhem. After almost 5 straight months of protests, marches, and rallies Mussolini and his party received seats in Parliament. They showed up in black uniforms, and made a show of their solidarity. More marches, rallies, and social unrest occurred over the next few years. In some portions of Italy the black shirts simply went to town on radical groups who were not in support of Mussolini. By 1920 many local government facilities were attacked and burned. Most of Northern Italy was entirely controlled by the fascist party utilizing local militia. By 1922 the Fascist party contained more seats of any other party. Riots had become almost a daily thing. Most of the parliament was in fear of the party. A trade union called for a strike, Mussolini called on the government to stop it or his black shirts would. They did so successfully and the result was additional support of the people. This is when Mussolini demanded power, he threatened if the government was not given to him he would march on Rome. The king gave in, and Mussolini was granted the position of Prime Minister. Later he would be elected by the parliament. He was given one year to turn the country around, which he did while establishing the framework for fascist law. A few people that fought against Fascism were assassinated as well. Mussolini held huge gatherings, telling the people only he could fix this political upheaval. Many laws he had written became law, the government established a military under his control. In 1924 he was elected into power by the people and the fascist party took parliament. Most of the people at this point had fallen for the hype. Mussolini was seen as a power that could fix the nation. The people just wanted the riots done, the economics to grow, and the country to regain its dignity. In 1925 he disbanded parliament and took party control of the country. This was the birth of fascism, and also the roadmap for the fascist takeover of a government. Gather the youth and teach them, control the media, initiate social unrest, promote equality and solutions, push people into distrusting the government, create social unrest, offer a single solution, then take control. We live in a world of controlled media today. The major media networks are owned by 5 corporations that control the narrative, seemingly supporting one side of a political argument over the other. Our rights are slowly being taken from us and the size of our government has been growing without check. Our education system and now dictionaries and encyclopedias are also directly under this group’s control. Now that same group is funding and supporting social unrest and riots across our nation. Even Wikipedia fails to admit, advertise, or impress the socialist ideas of Mussolini and Hitler in any explanation or article on socialism. These are very scary times we live in. Placing the idea of fascism entirely as a “right wing” idea even though in theory and practice they were “left wing” and ideologically modern liberal democrat stances, is dangerous and misguiding. I will not state that I believe that Fascists are left or right, I would put them in their own category. I am going to state they are their own category because of the idea of a single party system, such as China currently has, is simply authoritarian and neither right or left. I see absolutely no difference in the Italian Fascte or the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front. The EPLF ran and seized power under identical platforms and implemented very likeminded policies. What truly is the difference between a single party democratic socialism and a single party democratic socialism I don’t understand? Except maybe, just the idea that Hitler gave fascism a bad name and the fascists that want to control America don’t want their movement to sound scary. Departments of propaganda are not at all rare with in fascist states, in fact the control of the media is paramount. This extensive use of propaganda spills out into art, cinema, movies, posters, newspapers, books. In the Soviet Union, a byproduct of censorship was Russian science fiction and fantasy. In Latin America, Che Guevara pushed his agenda by operating Radio Rebelde and transmitted from Cuba to as far north as Washington D.C. In America fascism will only come from the liberal side. The hard right and conservatives, the libertarians like myself, we don’t believe in socialism which is the heart of any fascist movement. We, as a group of American Patriot Militia with Hawaiian shirts need to be weary. As the Fascte took power of Italy they killed those who they uncovered disagreed with them. The other thing that the Italian Black Shirts did was infiltrate other groups. They doxed supporters of other political movements and took them out as they gained power. The Black Shirts moved into positions of political power, and used the knowledge they had gained on the streets to eliminate or convert others. Over the last year in America I have witnessed many disturbing things. Liberal states and cities have been beefing up their laws as if preparing for an active government takeover. Oregon sent armed police to force state congress members to vote, at gunpoint. Washington State passed the first and most severe gun registration in the form of background checks ever. Washington State also passed laws allowing the use of facial recognition on traffic cams. Since COVID cities have released neighbor verses neighbor reporting programs, the basis of the Gestapo. States have already passed vaccination ID laws. Stay at home orders, needing papers in some places to drive around in public, and fines for having businesses. Liberals have discussed reeducation camps for libertarian and conservatives. They suggest removing police in favor of a Gestapo and counselors (reeducation individual). This all adds up to one big screwed up movement of rioters on our streets wanting to disband our constitution and force us to accept their rule. The major thing no one considers with these socialist movements is who would the ruling class be? Who would the liberal Hitler of America actually be? I would like to say follow the money. BLM, ANTIFA, and a lot of other left wing liberal movements seem to have likeminded donors, George Soros the Jewish Nazi that collapsed England’s banking system being one. Hillary R. Clinton being another, Zuckerberg and friends, CEOs of corporate Medical and Pharmaceutical Corporations, and CEOs from major media and news networks. This isn’t hidden in fact Bernie Sanders proved my point when he fought against government oversight of the 900 billion dollar hand out that our government gave to the medical corporations. He stated, “These companies are the ones saving Americans and will not rip off the American people”. His defense of corporations that charge $59.00 for a two inch strip from a fifty cent roll of tape expresses it all. No one appears to have noticed that 7 of the 1% are medical CEOs in his district. |
He came to America: My Grandfather’s story His family was so poor that after school he had to work, at age 8. Before leaving Italy he saw the inflation problems people had. Wages would increase daily, and inflation would increase before people would get off work. As was described by multiple people in my family, you would go to work knowing it cost a hundred dollars to feed your family. You would agree to work for $150.00 when you got off work you would go to the store. When you got to the store, the food you were going to buy for dinner would cost $300.00. You would go to work agreeing to get paid $400, when paid the food would cost $1,000.00. Only families with three or more working members could buy food. Stories of wheel barrels of money being taken to the store were common. The inflation was not what made my grandfather seek employment on a Norwegian ship. A new political party had formed among the labor unions, the Nazi party had new ideas and were getting a lot of support. He did not agree with the anger, and moved on. He remembered seeing the Time magazine with Hitler being called the man of the year. He remembered hearing that the Nazi party had taken hold of Italy, and during this time he also recruited a cousin to work with him. Life at sea was good he told me. Always enough food, always enough work. Having family with him was also a good way to ease the loneliness at sea. He had a few good years. His life was going to change. On a stop in New York City, the police raided the ship. All Italian and German shipmen were arrested. They were on a foreign ship, in the harbor, but the American’s did not care. The Italians were separated from the German’s, placed into used unclean cattle cars and shipped westward. At the time cattle would be raised, and loaded into cattle cars, shipped to the New York slaughter houses alive. So the people on the ships were handcuffed and thrown in with the cow manure. He was unloaded at an internment camp in Missoula Montana. Within months there were more than 1,200 people held there. The first winter was hard, and my grandfather’s cousin passed away. During the three year stay he was forced to fight fires, log trees, and work on local farms. The inmates were forced to steal firewood for the winter. When the war came to an end, the government opened the doors and set him free. They offered no transportation and gave him no paperwork to travel with, return home, or even work. He was released With Out Papers and had no place to go. His first job was for a logging company, the other workers got 2.00 a day while he worked for 25 cents. Life improved, it took a while but he saved up money. He even found family that already lived in the US. Eventually he learned English and was able to attend assimilation classes and legally become American. He returned to Montana and worked, eventually buying the logging company he once worked for. He made a life for himself with hard work. |
Brought to America : My uncle’s story My great grandfather had received a medal for bravery during the First World War. As a result the family was treated like a royalty in their community in Rome. As the cost of living increased the people blamed the corporations and bankers for the manipulation. His family was above the poverty line so when Mussolini’s team came in preaching about the 1% capitalist mark, he bought it. During the march on Rome many in my family supported Mussolini’s rise to power. Mussolini offered a solution to the separation of poor and rich. The monarchy fell and a socialist democracy was established. At first he wasn’t a dictator, the people voted equally on the redistribution of wealth with in the country. Slowly Mussolini was able to gain control of power of the nation. Within a few years the socialists had taken control of most of the nation’s business, and all of the government. Mussolini and Hitler had been friends for years, and many of the laws Mussolini had implemented mirrored German laws. In the years leading to the war the fight against the 1% also included Nazi anti-Semitic power. In 1939 my grandfather had moved up the ranks in Mussolini’s army, and in 1940 when Italy officially joined the German war effort my grandfather received a title of the SS. It is important to mention that Italy had been involved with Germany and armed conflict since Mussolini first took power. During the war my uncle worked with German, Austrian, and Italian science teams. During the last years of the war my uncle learned about the German death camps, and spread the word around Italy. When Mussolini was captured, my uncle returned to Italy and claims to have led an inner revolt that led to Mussolini’s death. When the American’s reached Italy, the army had learned of inner dissention of their government and many surrendered. During the last days of world war two my uncle was collected as a group in operation paperclip and brought to America. Surviving family were offered citizenship, and they were allowed all the freedoms the American people enjoyed. During my childhood my uncle made me read Mussolini and Hitler’s works. He taught me their political arguments and supplied me with the knowledge that was needed to understand what brought these two men to power. |