Mussolini's March on Rome: The First Fascist Insurrection

Episode Transcript
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your podcasts. What's overthrowing my democratically elected stay. I'm Robert Evans.
This is Behind the Bastards, a podcast about the worst

(02:14):
people in all of history. And we are, of course
recording in the immediate wake of what I think can
fairly be called an insurrection by fascist dominated right wing
militants UM. And in the immediate wake of that, I
sat down with my producer Sophie Sophie say Hi. Now
not literally sit down together, because of the plague. But

(02:37):
we we got on a text chat and I was like,
you know, this fascist insurrection against the democratically elected government
has a lot of similarities with other fascist insurrections against
democratically elected governments. Perhaps we should talk about the history
of fascist insurrections against democratically elected governments in order to
better prepare people for what needs to be done in
the wake of this to stop them from succeeding the

(02:58):
next time. And of course, once we had that idea,
the only person we could possibly bring on was our
good friend Jason Petty a k A. PROP. What what
the lick read? What's up with that failed nation? Stay?
How y'all feeling like literally I think I text Prop
and I was like, hey, I want to do this,
and like it was like yes, yeah, no brainer. There's

(03:21):
like they're so like you know, Robert myself, anybody else
who has like a seventh grade level understanding of history
has been like kind of flaring their arms like crazy
scientists in every movie that's like, y'all, the aliens are coming, guys,
I don't understand. How come nobody is seeing us telling y'all,
we're standing on our heads yelling at you like, this

(03:44):
is point for point, like bar for bar, point for point,
We've seen this before and I don't understand what you
don't understand. Yeah, how did this? Because I've been warning
about this for quite a while and uh that it

(04:06):
could happen here, and people continuously are like, I can't
believe you predicted this, And it's like nobody predicted this.
Everyone who was paying attention was like, Oh, this is
obviously going to happen because thousands of people are promising
to do this. Yes, it's like the dog. My favorite one,
my favorite meme going around was one where Ron Burgundy

(04:28):
he was like, wow, that estimated slowly over the past
ten years, Like yeah, I know, I can't believe these
people did exactly what they said they was gonna do.
This is crazy. Yeah, it's it's very frustrating. Um. And
so you know, the reason we decided to do the
special mini series Behind the Insurrections is that I think

(04:51):
historically that's what this is called. That you're listening to insurrection. Yeah,
you and I did a similar thing this year when
the uprising against the police started, where we kind of
talked about the history of the police and I thought
that was useful to inform people both the context of
why folks were angry for a lot of folks who
maybe had never really thought that much about the police
and didn't understand all the hatred um. And I also

(05:14):
thought it was useful because understanding, you know, the history
of something that you want to fight is useful in
fighting it, um, whether it's the police state or a
fascist insurrection. And understanding what other fascists have done throughout
history and where they've succeeded and failed, and how the
people opposing those fascists have succeeded or failed is important

(05:34):
both for us to know what's coming next and to
avoid making the same mistakes that other people made in
the past that led to them being ruled by fascists,
which I'd like to avoid. So naturally, we're gonna start
with Rome, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're about We're gonna
be starting with my old friend Benito, m Um big

(05:58):
Benny as no one has ever any move Yeah yeah.
The thing that I like, I mean, we're gonna get
into this, but like off jump the in in my
hopes to like, you know, help people figure out ways

(06:18):
in roads too, you know, their family members who have
been cooked by this like fascist movement is like is
dig inside of you and understand what it feels like
to be disenfranchised and what it feels like to feel
like you've been left behind by those that are supposed

(06:41):
to take care of you. And if you can understand that,
you know, coupled with a person having really non powerful
antennas to know that they're being fed bullshit, you know
what I'm saying. Um, then I feel like you're you're like,
you're you're starting to get an owners manual asked to
like how to not let yourself and you trying to

(07:03):
stop a fascist regime not incensing and creating martyrs out
of them and confirming their feelings that uh, you know,
airby against them. You know what I'm saying. It's just
it's a matter of like getting behind that and being like, Okay,
if this election was stolen, that would suck. You're right,

(07:23):
that would suck if that was true. It's yeah, not
though it's not, Yeah, it's not, it's not. It's like, yeah,
I mean, if a bunch of Satan worshiping pedophile wizards
were eating all of our children, that would be a problem.
We should fight that. But that's not happening. It's just
not true. Bro. Yeah, the real pedophiles in power are

(07:46):
more like the guy you think is the Second Coming.
But yeah, yeah, so let's let's let's talk about old
old Benito Mussolini. UM moves. I started thinking about NATO
as I was watching live stream footage of people breaking
through the capital barricades and into offices with zip ties

(08:07):
and weapons. UM. And I know that while this was happening,
in the immediate wake of it, a lot of people
started bringing up historical comparisons, and unfortunately, I think a
ton of those historic comparisons were bad. We're the wrong ones.
To make a good example of this would be a
ton of people who compared the events of the sixth
to Krystal knocked the Night of Broken Glass. UM. And

(08:28):
I think everyone here knows what that is. For those
that don't listening, it was a pegram, which is a
racial amass, racial assault like on members of a specific
race basically UM. That was instituted by the Nazi government
against Jewish people in Germany. Hundreds of synagogues and Jewish
owned businesses were burnt down on the space of a night. UM.

(08:49):
Hundreds of people were killed. UM. And it was a
nationwide racial attack carried out at the government's behest. Right. Um,
that's not what we saw on the set. That's not this.
Yeah and yeah, probably the most prominent person to make
that comparison was our current governor or former governor of
California and current Arnold Schwartzenegger Arnold Schwarzenegger um, whose video

(09:10):
otherwise had some really good stuff in it about Yeah,
I was gonna say I kind of dig it in
the sense of, like the way he was talking about
the remorse of people that was a part of it.
I think if he was gonna pull the Austria card, like,
it would have been a better although miss Leny's a
better parallel. But yeah, when um, when they burned the
parliament right before, Yeah, that's a more better comparison, you

(09:35):
know what I'm saying. Then, Yeah, absolutely, Yea has a
great TikTok content. He's got like a pet donkey that
follows him around. I'm sure he does. He's definitely like
the like the meme of like, you know, when it's
heartbreaking that the worst person, you know, it's an excellent point,

(09:56):
makes a really good point. Yeah, great point, Roley, And
I think his best point was just like, how you
know the victims of fascism continued long after the war,
including the children of Nazis who you know were abused
by parents and stuff. Great point to make wrong about
Christal Knock. When we're talking about actually good historic comparisons
and valuable ones to what happened on the sixth in

(10:18):
d C. There are a few. One of them, as
you noted, was the burning of the Austrian Parliament, which
I think we're going to talk about a bit later
in this series. Um. But and other folks have kind
of much more aptly, I think, compared what happened in
the sixth to uh the Munich Beer Hall push, which
was Adol Hitler's first attempt to seize power, And there's
a lot of good reasons to compare that to the sixth.

(10:38):
It's not really a perfect comparison. None of them are,
um in part because when Hitler tried to overthrow the
government starting in Munich, he was a political rabble rouser
with no power who was trying to spark a mass revolution.
And on January six it was like tens of thousands
of the president's fans, including a lot of police officers,
active duty soldiers and elected leaders who tried to take

(10:58):
over the capitol. It's a bit different. So for looking
for a better historic parallel to January six, I think
we might be better served by going back a year
before the nineteen Beer Hall putch, when a completely different fascist,
Benito Mussolini lad what came to be known as the
March on rome Um. A lot of really good comparisons

(11:19):
to what's happened, a lot of good lessons in the
March of rome Um. So most people good before you
start is just if you could it's you never really
want to like reach into the past and draw like
direct lines if you will, But if you could think
to yourself, just as a general grid, if in the
story you own the side of Mussolini, you probably on

(11:42):
the wrong side of history. I think we can say
that completely. So now as you continue think about your
position in this and you that might be able to
tell you which side of history you should be all
right now anyway going and if you're if you're rightfully
on the side of history, that's like, well, I don't
to stand with Mussolini, which I think the vast I

(12:02):
think the vast majority of people listening to this are
already there. I think one of the things this teaches
is why the people who didn't want Mussolini to wind
up in charge failed, you know, and and it's important
to know that as well. Right. Um, So, most people
are probably broadly familiar of Benito Mussolini, but because of
how history went down, he tends to be remembered mostly

(12:24):
as like Hitler's ridiculous and kind of sad sidekick, like
the least threatening dictator on the axis side. Um, Mussolini
doesn't wind up as like the frightening villain in a
lot of movies, right, you know, yeah, that's good. I
ever thought of it like that, but yeah, yeah, because
it's like you're just like, oh you oh yeah, you
Hitler light, unless you was in unless you was in it,

(12:46):
unless you was in Italy. Yeah, I mean even then
Italy would have been it would have been better to be,
you know, a Jewish person in Italy than in Germany.
Not a high bar, you know, the lowest bar in
history actually minimal hum. But yes, he gets this kind
of reputation of just being like incompetent and the junior
partner to Hitler and not very frightening. And that really

(13:09):
misses a lot of the history and what what people
at the time when Mussolini rose to power thought, because
Hitler actually in some ways idolized Mussolini. Um, and he
patterned his career off of Mussolini's career. The Munich Beer
Hall Pusch was inspired directly by the March on Rome.
Mussolini was not just the first um like Mussolini was

(13:32):
the first fascist dictator. He was the man who created
fascism as a political ideology that actually took power. Right.
We talked about Gabrielle de Nunzio, who kind of invented
a lot of the ideas that became fascism as a
and who was a contemporary of Mussolini's. But Mussolini is
the guy who made fascism work for the first time.

(13:54):
And when I say work, I mean actually seized power,
not that is a good government or anything. Um. He
was the first fascist who seized power from a functional democracy.
So he's he is not an incompetent buffoon. And you
kind of you it behooves you to understand how he
succeeded in the way that he did. Um. We're gonna
do a full set episodes on his life at some

(14:16):
point on behind the Bastards. But since we're just focused
on the march on Rome today, I'm gonna give a
little cliffs notes of Benito's life prior to him coming
to power. So Benito aml car Andrea Mussolini, which is
quite a name. That is a mafia boss right there,
except for the Andrea, right, except for that Andrea have
baptizes christening they gave him Andrea. Yeah, either that or

(14:39):
it's like a boy named Sue situation, and it turns
out that's actually a bad idea. Yeah. Uh. So he
was born on July three in a small Italian town
that I'm not going to try to pronounce right now.
His father, Alessandro, was a blacksmith and a socialist. He
named Benito after Mexican President Benito Warez, who's the name

(15:00):
sake of Uarez and who was the first indigenous president
of Mexico. Um and was a famous liberal you know.
Um I thought that was interesting, super inter Yeah yeah,
uh yeah, in nineteen o two. So that's like his background.
He goes a very left wing right like your parents
are naming you after the liberal indigenous president of Mexico,
Like that's that's quite a thing. That's a flex right there. Yeah,

(15:23):
what a pivot? Yeah yeah, this guy is one of
the great all time historic pivots, you know. Um. In
nineteen o two, Benito fled to Switzerland to avoid compulsory
military service. He became active in the Italian socialist movement
from Afar, and he grew obsessed with the writing of
syndicalist Georges Morel, who believed that capitalist democracy needed to
be overthrown by a combination of general strikes and violent

(15:46):
direct action. So he's he's a socialist's a leftist, but
he's a fan of these guys who are like, we
need a revolution and violence is okay in that revolution. Right.
That's like a big, big chunk of his early ideological upbringing.
In nineteen o four, or Benito returned to Italy under
a general amnesty for draft dodgers in exchange for which
he's he had to serve in the military for two years.

(16:07):
He did his time, he got out, and he became
a left wing journalist and a fire brand, participating in
a nineteen eleven riot protesting Italy's imperialist war in Libya.
He did night or five months in prison for this,
So not just like a talker, Like he puts his
skin in the game and he does time protesting and
imperialist war. Dang all right, okay, yeah, yeah he was,

(16:29):
he was. He was not like wishy washy about this stuff.
I guess it's the point I'm making. So as a
hardcore leftist, Mussolini hated the monarchy, which in Italy at
the time was similar in its kind of power to
the British monarchy. Italy is a constitutional monarchy at this point,
so more or less a democracy. But they've got a
king and he has some power. Um. In nineteen twelve,
Mussolini stated the king is nothing more than a useless

(16:50):
citizen and the Italian flag is fit only for a
dung heap. Yeah, burn it all down, burn it all
down kind of guy. Yeah, yeah, very much, very much. Now,
it may seem odd that the first fascist dictator was
a committed left wing activist in his youth, but it's
really not that strange. This is a pattern that we
see repeating itself over and over throughout the history of fascism.

(17:13):
In more recent times, just to talk about stuff that's
happened in the last like four years, Jason Kessler, who's
the fascist you planned and organized the first Unite the
Right rally in Charlottesville, got his starting political activism and
occupy in New York. You can find in Unicorn Rights
discord jets him talking about being very indue occupy at
the time. UM. Andrew Arenheimer, we've who's a neo Nazi

(17:34):
hacker and a prominent member of the fascist movement in
this country, claims to have been an organizer at Occupy
Wall Street. I found discussions in Unicorn Riots archive where
we've debates with other Nazis who were there about how
Occupied could have been handled differently and been more successful.
And for a lot of these Nazis, the failure of
the occupy movement to garner any real change and the
ease with which the police swept it aside were major

(17:56):
factors in radicalizing these guys to the far right. One
fascists that I found in a discord conversation said quote,
I was at Occupy Wall Street in two thousand eleven.
It was black pilling as fuck, by which he means
the experience was so disheartening that it pushed him towards fascism. Um,
and that's really what we see with Mussolini um, he's
very involved in left wing politics. He gets arrested for them,

(18:18):
and he sees them continue to fail. Right, they don't
succeed in overthrowing the government, they don't succeed in pushing
the changes that he believes are necessary, and it starts
to embitter him. I I often think that like some
of that happens in the black community with just also
like like still trying to wrap my brain around, Like

(18:39):
I saw a video of crips for Trump on the
on the UH at the at the at the at
the insurrection earlier. It's like Chris for Chump, west Side
something something, and and I could not wrap my brain around,
like how does will work? But I think it's it.
I think a lot of it does have to do
with the fact that, like, you know, we've tried so hard,

(19:00):
we put our flag in the sand with this particular
way of approaching you know, political change, and it's not working,
that you're like, well forget it, you know, and then like,
well maybe this will work. Maybe this going this direction
speaks more to like since the Empire the machine just
met us with might and just overpowered us with Mike

(19:24):
because they just they're just more powerful you'll only recourse
is to be like, well, I need to be more
powerful than that. I don't know. Yes, yes, that's exactly
when you when you're I think you're really onto something
like when you were when you're getting your ass kicked.
And I think some of this is that I think

(19:45):
it's probably more common with males who are kind of activism,
like and you get your pride is harm by getting
the ship kicked out of you repeatedly, by the repeated
failure to win, to advance, um, by the sheer strength
of your opponents. I do think that that can have
the effect of pushing people in that kind of more
violent authoritarian direction where you're like, well I just want

(20:07):
to win, Like yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if that
has if that's a part of what's going on. And
I think it is for Mussolini, because the switch for
him really happens as a result of World War One. UM.
So basically what you've got with World War one, Archduke
friends Ferdinand get shot dead along with his wife, and
it starts this this series of events right um, where

(20:30):
Austria is going to invade Serbia and Russia is going
to come in on the side of and like it
starts this whole domino effect, And so there's months between
his assassination and the actual outbreak of the war where
everyone knows that Europe is gearing up for a war.
And prior to that happening, the international left, the communist International,

(20:51):
largely had been very anti war, very united across national boundaries.
But as soon as a mass European war becomes a reality,
it starts to splinter. And there are a lot of
folks who had been socialist leftist, like workers who instead
of kind of siding with workers solidarity or like, well,
I'm gonna side with my country on this um. And
you know, that's not the only thing that's happening. There's

(21:13):
also like this, the Second International tries to organize like
some sort of workers strike or something like. There's a
couple of ideas about how they might stop the war
by organizing workers, and all of these ideas fail um
and you know, all of these ideas fail, and Europe
lurches towards war, and it's kind of like this moment
where this big international left wing movement shows it that

(21:37):
it's toothless in the eyes of at least of the
eyes of a guy like Mussolini, like, we said like this,
we weren't going to let this kind of thing happen,
and now it's happening. Um So that that for one
thing as a source of frustration to a lot of people. Um.
Mussolini is more directly enraged by something that happens earlier
in nineteen fourteen, um, something called Red Week, which was

(21:57):
when a bunch of workers there was a big mass
becers revolt in Italy that was brutally put down by
Italian police and the Royal Army. Um. And this had
kind of convinced him that the bourgeoisie leaders of left
wing political parties, the actual like liberals and socialist in
government didn't really support revolution and he did. So all
of this stuff is kind of in the mix, leading

(22:19):
to him getting kind of black pilled, to use the
words of that other Nazi. Um. And Benito doesn't come
out as against the war as a result of this. Instead,
he decides to become incredibly pro war because he thinks
it's going to accelerate the collapse of the Italian state
and lead to a revolution. Right. Um So, in mid September,
after Italy announced her neutrality in the war. Benito tells

(22:42):
the staff of the newspaper he worked at, Avanti, which
was a socialist paper, that he'd become convinced that war
alone could bring revolution to Italy. Um, so yeah, he's
kind of like an accelerations. We need to go to
war because that's going to force a revolution, is the
only way. Yeah, yeah, I I yeah. When you it's
it's always at least in my head, like I've I've

(23:02):
kind of let go of the like linear swing of
like you know, far right far left in my brain.
I know, we use that because that's how we understand
the world right now, but like it seems much more
like circular to where it's like, uh, they ended authoritarianism

(23:22):
at the end of the day, they end with a
with a strong dude like so so it was crazy
like yeah, so like the further left you go, you're
still gonna end that a dude overpowering I think, yeah,
I I which I was gonna say, which which why

(23:43):
Like I'm now leaning more towards thinking in anarchist ways
of being like you gotta get off this loop. It's
just this the whole it's there. We're gonna land in
the same place at some point, somebody's going to get oppressed,
you know, Yeah, and what you're So, there's a couple

(24:05):
of things, a couple of terms that are used a
lot for the kind of thought process that you just explained.
One of them is horseshoe theory, which is this idea
that the left and the right, when you go far enough,
come around to the same place. And I I don't
subscribe to that because I don't think that left wing
ideals and far right ideals are super similar, but I
do think that what you see that looks like that.
The reason why the far left and say Soviet Russia

(24:27):
under Stalin and the totalitarianism of Hitler have a lot
of similarities and similar body counts is because authoritarians always
trying to say exactly exactly it's the authoritarian left authoritarian right,
and Mussolini is always an authoritarian leftist. So it's easy
to go authoritarian right. If you're anti authoritarian, it's a
lot harder to wind up at that. We should have

(24:49):
a dictator place. Get off the loop, because if it
ends at authoritarian ism, then this is not where I
need to be. Yeah, exactly, if it ends with like
all of the power, we're being in one dude or
a tiny number of people's hands. Yeah, no, I want
It's like somewhere on this horse to I knew that

(25:09):
that wasn't a good idea. You know what I'm saying,
we need to get off the ride. And and Mussolini
is very much just a guy who's he's of that.
He's he's always been kind of an authoritarian um in
part because he is very in love with his own
ideas and thinking. And that's the same when he's on
the left as when he's on the right. And you know,

(25:30):
it's not a clean process of him going from socialist
to fascist. But it happens over the course of not
just World War One, but ramping up to getting Italy
involved in World War One. So Italy had, prior to
the outbreak of hostilities been allied with the Central Powers,
so they should have come in the war on Germany's side.
But they very intelligently, We're like, no, no, we're not

(25:52):
We're not doing this. This does seems like a good idea,
but and that's why. So they say we're not getting
involved in the war, and Mussolini becomes a pro war activist,
trying to force Italy to come into the war on
the side of the Allies, so fighting against the people
they've been allied with before. And I'm gonna quote now
from a write up in nineteen fourteen to nineteen eighteen online,
which is a World War One encyclopedia. It's a very

(26:14):
good resource on all this. After his late October editorial
demanded Italian intervention, socialist outrage prompted Mussolini's resignation. So he's
forced to resign from the party he had been a
member of. When his pro interventionalist newspaper will Popolo the Italia,
the Italia, the the Italian people, I think is what
it stands for. Yeah, not appeared In mid November, the

(26:34):
party expelled him. Mussolini concealed its funding by industrialists, the French,
his wealthy lover Margharita Saffrati, and possibly Russian agents. For
six months, through editorials and demonstrations, he promoted the interventionalist movement.
Collaborating with syndicalist Filippo Corradoni, Mussolini demanded war against Italy's
allies Germany and Austria Hungary to demolish bulwarks against European

(26:55):
Revolution of victorious war would forge a national mass movement
demanding political change. If the government rejected war, Mussolini threatened revolution.
Most Italians favorite piece, but Vittorio Emmanuel, the third King
of Italy, forced a war declaration on twenty four of
May nineteen fifteen. So there's a lot of interesting stuff
that's happening there. One of them is that Mussolini has

(27:15):
an ideological reason for wanting war because he thinks it's
going to lead to revolution. Another is that he's very
likely getting paid by foreign powers in order to incite
Italy to come in on their side. Um, kind of
like our ad sponsors who pay us, you know who
does come in sponsored violence against trying to accelerate our wallets. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(27:39):
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(29:30):
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(29:58):
So yeah, we're talking about Mussolini becomes this very much
like interventionalist figure and there's a mix of ideology and
foreign backing that kind of pushes him towards it. And
I could talk about websites like the Gray Zone and
they're weird Russian funding and how they're ostensibly left wing
but also pro imperialist intervention when some countries do it,

(30:20):
but I won't because we need to move on to
the story of Benito Mussolini. We've seen these patterns happen
recently as well. So Mussolini was obviously just one very
prominent voice in favor of war. He was a major
pro war figure, but he was probably he was not
the only one, and he was probably less influential than
Gabrielle de Nunzio, who again we covered in a two
party that I'd recommend people listen to. And to his

(30:42):
minimal credit. After helping to monger his nation into war,
Mussolini joined the army and fought as a bersiglieri uh,
which is like a marksman. It's almost a special forces unit,
right like it's an elite military unit. Um, kind of
like the Army Rangers, it seems um. And he was
did at the front by an exploding mortar in one

(31:02):
of Italy's many bloody stalemates with Austria. Since he'd become
a very public face of the pro war movement, the
King came to visit him twice while he was in
the hospital. Benito became a bona fide celebrity, and when
the war ended, this provided him with a great deal
of political capital. He moved further and further right, pulled
in by the spell of Gabrielle de Nunzio's proto fascist
rhetoric when Italy was screwed over by her allies with

(31:23):
the spoils of war, because like Italy had come in
on the side of the Allies, but they didn't really
get ship at the end of it, Like they wanted
a lot more territory, more of Austria, and they kind
of got sucked out of it. Um. And that pisces
off the Italian right who feel like we fought and
bled and lost our comrades for this and we didn't
get anything. And it's because of our lay mass left
wing government. Um, that's how a lot of folks feel. Um.

(31:46):
And yeah, Mussolini becomes is basically by the time the
war ins is pretty entrenched in the growing far right
in Italy and he supports Gabrielle Benunzio when de Nunzio
leads an army of Italian special forces veterans to occupy
a city of fume Um. And this is we again,
we talk about this in our episodes on de Nunzio,
but fume is this city that was part of Yugoslavia.

(32:07):
Yugoslavia gets created at wor World War One ends and
they get this city that Italy thought should be theirs.
So Denunzio leads an army of retired Special Forces veterans
to take it, and they turn it into this weird
It's like this melting pot because in you know, nineteen
eighteen nineteen nineteen, you've got all these ideologies that are
like still kind of forming. Anarchism and communism and fascism

(32:29):
are popular in a lot of like similar circles of people.
There's a lot of interplay between the at this period
because they're all kind of new ideologies being developed and
the same kinds of people who are interested in radical
politics are all hanging out together. Um. Yeah, So FUME
is like a big melting pot for all these kinds
of things and it winds up being the place where

(32:51):
a lot of what becomes fascism gets cooked up. It's
like that's that's the agency, you say, because like I
do picture it as like this, like yeah, like planets
for like nebulous balls of gas, where it's like it's
all the same elements and like you know, you're it's
still like, yeah, all this stuff is still kind of
coalescing and stuff like that. And but I also think

(33:14):
this particular moment in history for me is is it's
it should be very anchoring or or calibrating for all
of us, because what it tells you is that borders
are bullshit, like like it's not real. Borders are real,
Like you know what I'm saying, Like somebody just decided

(33:34):
that fumes in Yugoslavia, Like Yugoslavia came out of this
plot of land, has been here the whole time, all sometime,
I drew a line around, you know what I'm saying.
So it's like a large chunk of the city's population,
our Italian like yes, yeah, all of a sudden, they
just woke up in another country, you know what I'm saying.
So like that to me, like I need everybody remember

(33:55):
that when we're talking about our modern politics, like the
ship came from year and it's made up well, and
when we're talking about why so many people because one
of the things you see in this period is a
lot of people who were anarchists become fascists, and a
lot of fascists become anarchists. And it's because, in part
because when you when you live through a thing where
suddenly tens of millions of people wake up one day

(34:16):
in a completely different country than they went to sleep in,
everything is more malleable, right, Everything is more malleable. And
it's not obviously like fascism and anarchism are not similar ideologies,
but people who are into both may be drawn to
certain similar things. For example, a major aspect of fascism
is the cult of action for action's sake, the beauty
of violence and physical exertion and speed. And a lot

(34:39):
of anarchists were also into direct action, physical violence, fighting
like and so if you've got communities that are kind
of embracing this idea of action for action sake, some
of them are anarchists, some of them are fascists. But
a lot of times they're gonna wind up at the
same fucking places, you know, which is kind of you Also,
if you look at Germany prior to Hitler's rise to power,

(34:59):
there were times when communists and the fascists fought alongside
each other against the cops. It happened. It's a thing
that occurred, just this understanding that like, whatever we have
right now isn't working exactly like you know, what I'm saying, like,
and so you're all gonna be in the same space. Yeah,
And a lot of people in Fume they're not. They
maybe have called themselves a fascist and anarchist at the time,

(35:21):
where a communist it wasn't really settled in their minds.
They just knew that what they had grown up with
was wrong, you know. Um, And yeah, so Fume is
one of the things that comes out of this experiment
in Fume is the Italian fascist movement gets like solidified
in a lot of ways, but it starts before, like
there's thinkers pushing it before then. And while do Nunzio

(35:44):
is off on his adventure and fume um, Benito Mussolini
forms a fascist party in March twenty three of nineteen nineteen. Now,
a lot of the impetus behind the early fascists in
Italy were demilitarized army veterans, in particularly Special Forces guys UM.
Most of the fighters who accompanied de Nuncio to Fume

(36:06):
were members of the r d T, which is like
the Italian equivalent of like Special Forces guys. Like. They
were very elite soldiers. Mussolini had served in an elite
unit of marksman Um there were a bunch of like
the the guys who followed de Nunzio, the RDD were
like trench like stormers. They would do like what the
German stormtroopers would do, um, and they were terrifying people.

(36:28):
They would go into battle with like knives in their
teeth and grenades in both hands, like running directly ahead
of artillery barrages, and like this is where like a
lot of that cult of action for actions saying these
are adrenaline junkies. That's a huge part of early fascists
in Italy and Germany. These are guys who became addicted
to adrenaline during the war and can't stop fighting when
they get back home. And it's a thing that is

(36:49):
a factor in our modern fascist movements. Right. A lot
of a lot of vets and cops and stuff wind
up in that. UM. I'm also interested in just the enarrowomised.
As I started a political party, I'm like, logistically, what
does that look? Was there like paperwork? You file? Like,
how do you style? Like? I still think, like, yeah,
we'll start a party. We'll talk about that in just

(37:10):
a second. I want to talk a little bit more
about some of these demilitarized vets. Yeah, there's a form
online somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. The r d D had been
formed in June of nineteen seventeen UM as a special
forces unit in Italy. Um and they were like when
they were like sort of um like new. One of
their commanding officers address the unit, these very young men,

(37:32):
most of whom came from a peasant background, who had
gotten to be very good at fighting, extremely experienced veterans,
and he tells the soldiers, you are the first, the best,
the future owners of Italy, the new Italian generation, fearless
and brilliant. You will prepare the great future of Italy.
The smile of the beautiful Italian woman as your reward,
you can tell you can't tell no little like young hungry,

(37:54):
violent dude. That no, exactly right, Like you see the
seeds of this, like why so many of these guys
become fat? And as an aside, one of the emblems
on their uniform that they wore in their hats was
a skull and crossbones, which is the same basic emblem
that the Nazi s s which started as like Nazi
street fighters before they were a military and you know
what they wore, right, like a lot of the same

(38:15):
ships happening. These guys. The r d D are famous
for giving the stiff armed Roman salute, the sig hile
as most people know it. Um Like, so a lot
of this stuff again, you see it all cooking up
in World War One. And by the time the war
came to an end, the liberal biblical elite in Italy
knew that these young guys were terrifying. That like, oh shit,
we trained up an entire generation of incredibly violent and

(38:38):
competent at violence young men and now we have nothing
for them to do. Like and um that they realized
this as a problem, they disbanded the r d D
like immediately after the war ends. It takes less than
a month. But these guys are still all out there,
and they have no plan for demilitarizing them. And again,
I could again make some comments about what happened in

(38:59):
Iraq after we dissolved the entire Iraqi army. Yes, now,
it's never a good idea. You have to take care
of these people afterwards, otherwise they murder people in the
streets sometime or become the nexus of a fascist political party.
Um So again, four months after the armistice ended, World

(39:20):
War One. Three months after the r d D are disbanded,
on March nineteen nineteen, Benito Mussolini puts together a group
of one hundred angry young men, a mix of Italian
war veterans, a lot of them special forces type guys,
former socialist elected leaders and journalists. They meet in Milan
and they declare the formation of the Fascist Party. So
that's how it happens. You get a hundred dudes together

(39:41):
and you're like, we're a fucking political party. Now start recruiting.
And one of Benito's first moves is to start recruiting
from the disaffected ranks of former soldiers. He brings in
hundreds of these guys and he reorganizes them into paramilitary
squads uniformed in black shirts and red Fez caps. Mussolini's
black Shirts start going after their political opponents in the

(40:02):
street now in night. Yeah, it's just like the formula doc.
Find somebody angry and give him a uniform, Give him
a uniform, tell him it's okay to go out and
beat the ship out of people they already don't like. Yeah,
and I'm already angry, I'm already pissy. And you say
those dudes are your problem. And there's in any society

(40:25):
that has just gone through a war and is dealing
with economic inequality, which Italy is at this period, in
economic collapse and incompetent political leadership, you will be able
to find tents, sorry, you will be able to find
tens of thousands of those whom and he are like, yeah,
I'll make this my whole life. Absolutely, Oh where whatever,
Fred Perry shirts, fuck it, let's do it. I'll storm
the capital. Yes, it's very easy. Yeah, um, yes. Uh

(40:50):
so Mussolini forms the Fascist Party. He starts organizing all
these squads of black shirts, and for an idea of
how fast this gets out of hand, nineteen nineteen, Mussolini
starts the Fascist Party with a hundred men. By nineteen
twenty one, there were three hundred thousand members. Yeah. So,
I'm gonna pause here for another little rant about modern

(41:12):
anti fascism, because this is something that's also relevant to us.
Over the last four years, since Antifa became a household
name after the first Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville,
liberal celebrities and politicians have repeatedly urged people not to
confront fascists in the streets. Some of even complained about doxing,
which is the public naming and shaming a fascist activists
who are caught in the wild doing Nazi stuff. Now,

(41:32):
the general argument tended to go something like this, people
showing up to fight them just emboldens them and brings
more of them out. Ignore them, and they'll go away.
This was more or less the attitude of most, but
not all, American liberals throughout much of the Trump administration,
and TIFA tended to be condemned as often as groups
like the Proud Boys. Police were given a free hand
to use violence on anti fascists, while fascist street movements

(41:54):
were ignored or directly enabled by law enforcement and by
political parties. Will a political party, these organizations, as a result,
grew steadily in power and reach for several years now.
On January two, liberal activist Amy Siskin tweeted, if you
live in d C, stay off the streets. On January six,
let the DC police take care of the white supremacists

(42:14):
like they did in Oregon yesterday. I actually think it
will be fun to watch l O L. Yeah. Not
a take that aged well ah yeah. Now, when anti
fascists say fascist movements have to be confronted immediately and

(42:37):
often with physical force. They're not always at least using
bluster or bravado. There's certainly adrenaline junkies within the ranks,
and I've met a few of those people. Absolutely, but
that's not entirely even mostly what that is. It is,
in fact, a calculation based on a century of documented history,
um again from a hundred to three hundred thousand in

(42:57):
about two and a half years. Yeah, wow, because ain't
nobody say nothing? Yeah? Because or not enough with set?
You're not enough with set. It's it's yeah, it's crazy
when you're dealing with like when you, like I said,
you're already angry, You're already like all you understand is might,

(43:17):
and it's like you can't reason with somebody that only
understand Might. Yes, but then if I go meet you
with Might and I don't beat you, then we all
wasted our time and you you feel vindicated because I
wasn't able to stop you. It's just yeah, this, the
the whole the whole concept just puts everybody in a pickle.

(43:43):
It's not an easiest thing to solve. Yeah, you can't
solve it, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, I'd like,
I mean, the best solution is to oppose them with
overwhelming numbers because that actually drastically diminishes the amount of
violence that there will be if you none, none of
these guys want to get into a fight, if they're
out number three d to one. That's not when the

(44:04):
violence happens. It's when they have the numbers, or there's
parody of numbers, you know. Yeah, And that's why people
were saying, like, what if tens of thousands of people
have showed up in the streets of DC to protest,
I don't think they would have made it through the
capital barricades. Now it's a pandemic. None of this is
a simple situation, and it wasn't simple in Italy. And
we'll talk We're gonna talk now about the anti fascist

(44:27):
resistance in Italy because in Italian, like Italian fascism did
face substantial resistance from anarchists and other anti fascists, um,
and we're about to talk about why that didn't wind
up working out. Much of the anti fascist resistance in
Italy also came from members of the r d D,
from other like UH elite soldiers who just like weren't
Nazis right hadn't been or fascists who hadn't been pushed

(44:50):
right who had gotten left instead, or who just didn't
still believed in the idea of democracy, Because again anti
fascists in Italy there's a mix of like the hard left,
but also just like people who are republican right and
like the sense of I support a republican form of government,
not like not like a modern republican totally different. So
the inciting incident for the violence between anti fascists and

(45:12):
fascists in Italy is generally seen to as having been
an attack Mussolini ordered on April fifteenth, nineteen nineteen, against
the newspaper he used to write for, Avanti, which was
the Socialist Party newspaper UM. Now, Italian fascists were courageous
and often well organized, but they had to contend with
not just fascists but the police in the army. This

(45:32):
meant that the deck was stacked against them from the beginning. Meanwhile,
events and Fume caused Mussolini to realize that he had
an advantage in the fact that the police and the
army were inherently sympathetic to fascists. So again we talked
about Donunzio's occupation of Fume. Um in another episode, but
a brief refresher here's worthwhile. In short, Uh, he occupies

(45:53):
Fume for about fifteen months. Um, there's all sorts of
art and weird sex and political sure, and yeah, things
go a little wild, and eventually the King of Italy
like is forced to do something. So King Victor Emmanuel
the Third, whose nickname was Little Sword because he's a
tiny guy. Um, at least he all things to be

(46:13):
called sword. Yeah, yeah, you know, I mean they're Italians,
you know what they're saying. Yeah, that's called it. You
can't be the king and called little Sword you liked.
He's not a very good king, so um, he's very
sympathetic to what do Nunzio is doing. He wants Italy

(46:34):
to control Fume, right, so he thinks that do Nunzio
and his proto fascists are in the right. But also
Fume went to Yugoslavia by international treaty and he's not
about to go to war with the rest of Europe
over a city of sixty people. So he has to
send in the army and navy to clear Denuncio out.
In December, of nineteen Now, after this de Nunzio spell

(46:54):
over the r d D and the other really hardened
war veterans who had gone to him and Moss like
they're his spell over them is broken and they switched
their allegiance to Mussolini. So these guys, the best fighters,
like Mussolini's early guys, aren't really as competent. The people
who had taken Fume, who were like really actually hard
and dedicated, um to fucking shut up. Like, those people

(47:16):
start swarming over to Mussolini in mass after December of
nineteen twenty, and they expand the ranks of the black
Shirts significantly. Um. And Mussolini doesn't just benefit in that way,
he also takes a really important lesson away from what
happens in Fume. And I'm going to read a quote
from the Warfare History Network, who did a great rite
up on all of this. This is them describing what
Mussolini learns from this occupation. The police would often overlook

(47:38):
fascist depredations in favor of attacking their traditional leftist enemies,
the socialists. The police would also fire on opponents of
the monarchy. More importantly, the duche observed, which is Mussolini's nickname,
so would the military. Therefore, he realized he had to
win over the king, the police, and the armed forces
by a clever mix of both public bluster and behind

(47:59):
the scenes old fashioned political maneuvering to attain appointed or
elective office by legal means. In other words, do Nunzio?
He realizes Donunzia was able to get this far and
occupy the city because the army wasn't willing to fight him.
The police weren't willing to stop him while he was
marching there because they're sympathetic. But when do Nunzio put
himself in opposition to the Italian crown and the will

(48:21):
of the government, the police in the army cracked down.
They did their duty because they're loyal to the state inherently.
So if he's going to win, he can't be fighting them,
and he can make use of the fact that they're
sympathetic if he just becomes part of the government. That's
the way Mussolini realizes Fascism is not going to win
by a revolution. Fascism is going to win by democratic means,

(48:43):
because the deck is stacked in our favor. If we
try it that way, If we try to like lead
a violent revolution, they'll murder us like they would anyone
trying to lead a revolution. If we become part of
the government, they'll help us crush our enemies and will
gain power. Dude. That yeah, the finessing because it's it's
when you lay it out, it's pretty logical, you know, Like, yeah,

(49:07):
a monarch about something that's lasted thousands, it's it's in
their d n a dog like you can't you know
what I'm saying, Like, just it's too It's like it's
too much to ask. Yeah, you know what I'm saying,
it's too much to ask these people to try to
like go against their very nature to be like but
if you if you include the crown, you keep your king.

(49:27):
We're just gonna get rid of the left. Yeah, like
them anyway, do you help us kill him? Like yeah, now, yeah, exactly. Yeah,
it's very saving. And this is again why I think
people need to have more of the kind of like
respect for Mussolini is opposed to seeing him as this
buffoon is he first he figures it out, He figures
out how fascists are going to win anyway. So Mussolini decides, Okay,

(49:51):
I have to um, I can't do what the anarchists
and the communists and the left to do and try
to like overthrow the government. That's not going to work.
My path to victory is going to be finding a
way into the government. And this was not hard for
him to do. He runs for office and in May
of nineteen one he's elected to the Chamber of Deputies
in Rome, along with thirty four other Fascist Party members. Quick,

(50:13):
very quick, and they're kind of in the middle of
the pack in terms of how many elected leaders they
have um but they're they're in the government now. And
Mussolini barely ever showed up in chamber because he thought
any governing body based around him compromising was dumb and
not worth listening to. But he liked the legitimacy that
elected office gave him and his party. And it's not

(50:33):
a coincidence that ninety one is also the year when
the Royal Italian Army joined the police and cracking down
on anti fascists, because now the fascists are part of
the government, right, so we can yeah now. Becoming an
elected leader also gave Mussolini immunity from prosecution while he
was in office. This was helpful because while the Fascist

(50:53):
Party gained electoral power, Mussolini's black Shirts were increasingly committing murder.
And I'm gonna quote now from a study the Journal
of Values Based Leadership. Fascists agitated against the left and
streets and neighborhoods across Italy. Socialist offices, institutions, and party
newspaper headquarters were attacked and burned, militias organized throughout the country,
and anti Bolshevik crusades, breaking up strikes and fighting labor

(51:16):
unions and farmer co ops. The fascist squads, dressed in
black shirts and uniforms, were supported by the local police, landowners, merchants,
and industrialists. They used violence to destroy any organization they
felt could be an opposition to the doctrine of fascism.
Thousands of people were beaten, killed, or forced to drink
castor oil and run out of town. Hundreds of union offices,
employment centers, and party newspapers were looted or burnt down.

(51:39):
In October of nineteen twenty, after the election of a
left administration in Bologna, fascists invaded the council chamber, causing
mayhem and nine deaths. The council was suspended by the government. Later,
so again, a left wing administration is elected in this city.
Fascists invade the council and kill nine people and it's
suspended by the government. Later socialists and Catholic deputy is

(52:00):
we're run out of parliament or had their houses destroyed.
The two Black Years ninety two destroyed opposition to the fascists.
Union organizations were crushed. The FEDA Tera Farmers co Op
shrank from some one million members to less than six
thousand in less than five years. Unable to defend basic
democratic rights or prevent the criminal activities of a private

(52:20):
militia that operated openly in nationwide, the state had lost
all credibility. Yo, gang banging. Any of that sounds familiar, Yes,
it does. It's yes, It's like, uh God dug like you.
It's something. It's something that fascinated me as you was reading.

(52:43):
Is is like really helping you get into the brain
like a fascist to where it's like the government's not
the head but an appendage, like you're just you're a
You're a You're a tool that I yield, just like
the population, the labor unions, the military, the street guys,

(53:07):
they're all just they're all just appendages. These are arms,
their tentacles, but your means to an end. So I'm
getting into the government not because I feel like that
means I made it. It's just no, I just need
to wield the government or my and that like, to me,
that's like a you just like oh, it's like your

(53:29):
relationship is transactional, like it's a functional This isn't the goal.
I just need that. You're my sword, and I'm like, yes, yes, exactly.
Government just a sword. Yeah, this is my weapon that
I use on you. It's it's not a list of
as I think a lot of liberal seat it's not

(53:49):
a series of obligations. It's not a social contract. It's
a gun. It's a gun. It's a gun. And when
you get that's Christy, they listen these Everything we just
read that the Black Shirts did has been the goal
for years of the American fascist movement, not just of

(54:10):
groups like the Proud Boys, but of more extreme and
explicitly Nazi organizations. Um. You can see evidence of this
in attempted actions of men like Coastguard Lieutenant Christopher Hassan,
who was caught with an arsenal and a list of
Democratic lawmakers he planned to murder um. This is very
much what groups like the Proud Boys wanted to do
to left wing organizations nationwide. It's why you saw so

(54:32):
many groups of right wing counter protesters and malicious show
up at blm rallies, right, It's why before they were
showing up at left wing anti fascist events. It's what
you saw during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville,
leftists surrounded and assaulted in mass for standing against fascists.
One of the great successes of the anti fascist movement
in the United States that was not uh, something that

(54:54):
we saw in Italy, has been the fact that they
actually did succeed in the widespread disruption and of particularly
the leadership cast of different fascist organizations. Basically everyone involved
in planning Unite the Right had their life ruined, and
most of them are no longer relevant on the streets.
Nobody talks about Jason Kessler anymore. Nobody talks all that
much about Richard Spencer anymore. Um, some of them are

(55:17):
in jail, like, uh funk, what's that guy's name? The
crying not Chris can't. Well, that's how that was how
made I got kicked off a tender. Yeah, yeah, that
I think that happened to him too. Um. And you
know a lot of them, like Richard Spencer's drowning in
legal fees from lawsuits from people and and um, yeah,
in two thousand eighteen, not just angry at court cases,

(55:38):
but angry at the fact that his speeches were continuously
disrupted by anti fascist activists. Richard Spencer complained that's giving
these speech like having these gatherings was no longer fun
and quote Antifa is winning. Um. Now, he wasn't precisely
right about that, because January sixth showed that the fight
is very far from But Spencer was beaten. And most

(55:59):
of the original wave of fascist leaders, the people who
wanted to do what Mussolini did, whose goal was to
do what Mussolini did, Guys like Spencer, they've been fucking sidelined,
Which means that most of the people who are prominent
now have not been prominent and in the position of
leadership for all that long. So while you have groups
like the Proud Boys that have been around this whole time,

(56:19):
militias that go back quite a while, and more extreme
groups that go back quite a while. Um, a lot
of the leaders have been disrupted one way or the
other have had their lives bucked up, and it's stopped
them from doing in some ways what maybe they might
have otherwise done. It stopped them from gaining as much power,
it stopped their organizations from being as cohesive. UM. Some
organizations have been shut down, like Identity Europa. UM. So

(56:43):
it's this has been If we want to look at
like successes of a modern anti fascist movement, that's been
one of them. And I think we can credit that
for the fact that the attack on the Capitol on
the sixth was not better organized or more cohesive, because
there has been disruption of these movements, UM. And I
don't know what else would be a disruption of our
our movements right now, Robert, because that is going to

(57:08):
disrupt my train of thoughts significantly. Yet I don't like
that I decided to do that, But America, that happened.
How Manny eat a chip. That's a good call. Everybody,
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(57:29):
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(57:49):
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(58:11):
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(58:54):
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the AD Council. We're back, So prop I think you
had you had something on your mind before we uhm it,
What the hell was I going to say? What was

(59:36):
I going to say? Um? Oh um? There's something that
I think the these old school fascists did oh school wow,
um that these new guys they haven't done it. Yeah.
I think that's why it's It's one of those things.

(59:57):
It's a fine it's a fine um distinction, because I
do think there's a lot of value in showing these
people as as absurd and as sad as they are. Um,
you have to do it without also making them feel
like they're not a threat, which is hard. Yeah, that's
a that's a and and thankfully, I think one of
the positives of how bad everything went on the sixth

(01:00:18):
is that as absurd as it is in, one of
the difficulties about talking about this movement to people for
a while has been that like, folks, um, we're like, okay, well,
these are just a bunch of of coops on the
internet wearing dumpach t shirts about Q, Like why should
I take this seriously? That's why you should take it
seriously because yes, you just yeah, it's something again like dangerous. Yes,

(01:00:41):
when you when you? When you? That's why I said earlier,
it's like somebody hungry and angry like you. If somebody
tell you they're willing to die, believe them, you know
what I'm saying, Like you, you you should believe them.
You take you underestimate as something you learned living in
just the inner city. You don't underestimate anybody if you know,
if they presented it to you, like I just I

(01:01:02):
don't know how hungry you are. I might look like
your lunch now if I can overpower you, or there's
a whole other scenario. But you right, like I'm not
gonna underestimate you, and I really feel like you know,
fast forwarding or yeah, bringing us back to now, is
that I'm not sure you know, oh oh, Joe Biden

(01:01:23):
really understand how I'm serious your situation is. I don't
think he didn't say they was gonna kill you, because like,
I don't think you understand they that man somebody come
into a Capitol building with a Viking horn, that man
don't care about his life. He gonna kill you, Yeah, exactly,

(01:01:44):
And I think I know that is Again one of
the problems is I think a lot more people are
taking it seriously. But I don't think Joe Biden is
I don't think he's I don't think you. I don't
think you understand, bro, Like you know, don't you understand
the severity of situation. It's not done and owned a
twenty big like we're not done. Yeah, there's a bunch

(01:02:04):
of people out there who if they had gotten who
if they get their hands on you, will do great
harm to you. And they almost did it once in
their heads at least. Uh you know. Yeah, So let's
let's talk about we were going a little bit of
a tangent there, But I want to talk about the
Italian anti fascists. So we just talked about kind of

(01:02:25):
what I see is one of the big successes of
the American anti fascist movement. I want to talk about
why the Italian anti fascist movement did not succeed. Um. So,
the Italian anti fascists began to raise their own proper
army in July of ninete, because again, the fascists had
an army, The black Shirts were an army, and it
was doing great damage to not just like anarchists, but

(01:02:46):
to all left wing movements around the country. So they
formed their own army, the r d T del Popolo,
like the People's Areddy I think, um so again they're
still using that norm. A lot of them are veterans,
and they were a heterogeneous mix of anarchists, syndicalists, socialists, communists, republicans,
and other non authoritarian ideologies. The r d T del

(01:03:08):
Populo were popular among the lower classes among poor Italians
because they had no party affiliations than they offered protection
from the fascists, who were basically a violent gang. Now,
there were other malicious style groups that confronted fascists, including
the r d T Rossi, which was a communist organization,
but the local Communist party forbade them from allying with
the anarchists and the republicans and the like, because like,

(01:03:30):
you guys aren't our friends either. Right. This is again
you see this happening in Germany. Now, there were communists
who were part of the r d T del Populo,
but they weren't like party communists, you know, there's a
difference between those two things. And communists in this era
is used a lot for people who were like very
anti authoritarian. Um, a lot of folks would consider them
basically anarchists today, and also for people who were like Stalinists,

(01:03:52):
you know, and that they weren't Stalinist yet because it
was you know, nineteen I was like wait one, but
like yeah, they that where they that's where they're they were.
They were headed. Um. Yeah. So on July the r
d T del Populo held their first national Congress. One
of their leaders, a guy named Argo secondary, outlined the

(01:04:14):
organization's goals in a speech, and this is Argo here.
The r d T del Populo's action has to be defensive.
But defense means above all to prevent and to render
impossible any harm that can be caused by the adversary.
The r d D del Populo do not carry out
punitive expeditions, but perform acts of justice. They do not

(01:04:35):
carry terror into the population, but to fend the people
and organize their security. That is why the r d
T del Populo welcome members of various parties and contain
representatives of all political beliefs. They do not intend to
make politics, but leave this to the already existing parties
and economic organizations. The r d T del Populo must
act like a worker's army and give the proletariat defense

(01:04:56):
and protection. That's not gonna work. Yeah, yeah, they tried. Um.
Now you want to guess why it didn't work. They
had no actual goals. They were just like we're just
They're like, oh no, there's no platforms. In my head,
I'm like, ain't no platform. You just said we're gonta
lead that to the government. Yeah, we're just gonna make
sure like no food of government's compromise anyway. Tell me

(01:05:21):
that is a great, That is a great. You know,
that didn't even a credit. You're you're right, like these
guys are saying, our only goal is to defend you
from the fascists, but that's not nearly as popular as saying, hey,
here's what we we're the fascist, here's what we believe,
here's our platform, here's what change, and we have this army. Right,
Like that is that is a very good point. Like,
like you said, they're leaving the platform up to the government,

(01:05:42):
who is not on their side, and like you, yeah, yeah,
Now that's not everybody, right, There's a lot of anarchists
and stuff who aren't saying, like, I think we should
leave it to the government, but they are saying like,
I'm not going to I think that fighting fascism with
these other people is more important than you know, pushing
my own political beliefs in this necess in this area,

(01:06:03):
which is I think a respectable thing to take. But
it was a problem that there was not a concerted,
organized um counter left wing movement that was like that,
that had like a solid platform and the to the
extent that the fascist did. Right, there were different left
wing groups that confronted them and had platforms, but it
was not like what it was, not on the side

(01:06:24):
and the same scale, you know, And that's a problem
that anti fascists still have today. Right, there's a strength
in saying like, hey, if you're a communist, if you're
an anarchist, if you're just a libertarian who's not an authoritarian,
if you're a democrat, like, come join us. We're just
trying to fight the fascist. But there's a weakness in well.
But also we don't agree on anything other than that. Yeah,
And it's like okay, cool, So what if you win? Yeah,

(01:06:46):
what do we do or how do you win? If
they have a thing they believe that they're fighting for
and you're mainly fighting against them, that that is true.
There's a good point to that, um. And there's obviously
there's a lot of anti fascists who do who wrap
their anti fascism in um, this is part of the
struggle against capitalism, This is part of the struggle for
a better world. This is part of a revolutionary that's
a lot of it today. Um. And those people did

(01:07:09):
exist in Italy at the time. But this large organized
the r DD del Populo, isn't really doing that, um.
And it's it's part of their downfall, I guess, um,
because the government starts spying on them, as is always
the case whenever that is organized in any government. Undefeated boy, Yeah,
and the in Italy's FBI equivalent actually did confirm in

(01:07:30):
a report to the government that the r d T
del Populo had quote only one principal aim, that is
to react against fascism with the same means that are
employed against them, i e. Arm defense. So the the
Italy is like FBI equivalent is like, these guys are
only there too for defensive purposes. But despite this, the
government orders a crackdown on the r d T del Popular.
They enforce anti paramilitary laws against them, They dissolve local cells,

(01:07:53):
they imprison many leaders and members, and by October the
organization is essentially defunct. Now no such action were taken
against the black Shirts, and as a result, by the
end of nineteen twenty one, the Mussolini's Fascist Party had
more than a quarter of a million members or member
or something like that. Um, this is one of those
situations where like, Yeah, your house is getting broken into

(01:08:15):
and you called a police and the police arrest you. Yeah,
like bam, this is my house. Like I'm telling you,
I'm not the problem. I don't understand this. I'm telling
you this is the issue, and I We're going to
book them. Dano. It's like, oh, man like I feel like,
I don't know, that's what it sounded like to me.
I'm like, you're trading the wronghood right now. Yeah, the
police cracked down pretty in. The army cracked down exclusively

(01:08:38):
on the anti fascists, and the fascists are allowed to
continue to organize. And they said, like they used the
same laws against them they could have used on the
fascist for having the black shirts. They just don't choose
the shoose. And the part that don't make sense and
continues to not make sense is, like you said, the
fascists are telling you the platform, this is our plan.

(01:08:59):
We feel overthrow you and put all our guys in power.
And that's our dude, that's our plan. Oh you want
our side, okay, cool? Like yeah, it's because they it's
you know, it's it's it's because hatred of the left
unites the fascists and the people who wouldn't necessarily be

(01:09:21):
whole hog in on fascism but are because they hate
the left, which is you know why this this keeps
happening and why um yeah, it's it's it's frustrating we
deal with versions of the same problem today and this
is why I don't suggest people who are talking about like, well,
in the wake of the sixth we need a new
anti domestic terrorism statutes like that's only going to be

(01:09:42):
used on the left, like they'll do. They'll use it
once on a couple of proud boys, and then it
will be used against leftists for decades. That's the way
it's going to happen. And Muslims, you know, anyone who's
not a white conservative man. So as we know, the
problem is white people play in Italy, white people basically

(01:10:05):
everybody's white. So that's really pretty easy to say. Now. Yeah,
so I'm just kidding bhy the bastards listeners, I'm just kidding.
I'm much more nuanced than that. I'm not kidding behind
the bastards listeners. So uh. N early nineteen twenty two,

(01:10:26):
the anti fascist resistance has been heavily like not completely eliminated,
but very badly broken. Um. The fascists are ascend that
they have hundreds of thousands of members, they have elected
leaders in government. Um. Now again they're kind of middle
rung when it came to their actual number of elected leaders.
They're not in charge at all. But Benito didn't care
about how many actual elected deputies, they said. He famously stated,

(01:10:50):
I prefer fifty tho rifles to fifty thou votes. What
mattered to him was having a presence in the halls
of power, which would enable him to get those rifles
on his side. And if course, the government's already shown
that they're going to let him a crew rifles while
they stopped his opponents from getting rivals. Yeah. Now, Mussolini
starts in nineteen twenty two, sketching out the dimensions of

(01:11:10):
an ambitious and daring plan for a power grap He
had spent the last year so placing strategic groups of
fascists around the country, replacing shattered left wing trade unions
with their fascist equivalent, which allowed him to organize postal workers,
cab drivers, and other working communities. He expanded the black
Shirts into a force of tens of thousands, a veritable
paramilitary army. On October sixteenth, nineteen twenty two, he convened

(01:11:32):
a meeting in Milan with his most trusted deputies, including
the three commanders of the Black Shirts and two retired
Italian Army generals. He announced that he was planning to
organize a mass march on Rome. He would gather a
force of tens of thousands of black shirts and march
to occupy the capital and force a change of government.
At this stage, Mussolini did not think that he was
going to be the head of that government. Instead, his

(01:11:53):
goal was to force a coalition a liberal prime minister
with five fascist ministers basically like um cabinet secretaries kind
of who would be the real power behind the scenes.
So he wanted to have a liberal like in front
and have it all be run by fascists, right, Okay,
So the actual inspiration for the March on Rome came
not from Mussolini but from the secretary of the National

(01:12:15):
Fascist Party, Michelle Bianci. Bianci wanted an armed fascist insurrection
to force the liberal ruling class to hand over power
to Mussolini himself, rather than even paying lip service to
the idea of liberal democracy, and Bianci eventually like convinced
everyone to go with his plan. Now true to form,
Mussolini took credit for it, later claiming that the march.
The plan for the March on Rome had come to

(01:12:36):
him after a rally in September when his supporters had
chanted to Rome to Rome, But in any case, by
October of nineteen twenty two. He's ready to do this ship.
So Mussolini gives a speech to about sixty his followers
at a fascist congress in Naples on October and he
tells them our program is simple. We want to rule
Italy now. As he spoke on the twenty four units

(01:12:59):
of his acture, its we're fanning out to occupy key
locations around Italy in preparation for this march on Rome.
In all, some twenty six thousand fascist paramilitaries assembled with
illegal arms and ammunition from the Warfare History Network quote.
Illicit stores of arms and ammunition were received secretly from
sympathetic police stations, and some army barracks, well armories, and

(01:13:20):
even museums were raided for antique firearms. The overall array
of weaponry included shotguns, muskets, powdered loaded pistols, golf clubs, sites,
garden hose, tree roots, table legs, dynamite sticks, dried salt, codfish,
and even an ox's jawbone. What just whatever they can
beat someone with. If they can't get a gun, it's
anything they can hit someone with. And imagine an antique

(01:13:43):
weapon already in that's an old gun that's an old
gun boy. Yeah, it's just whatever they can get your hands.
So that was you actually answered one of the questions
I had. I was like, so, if they're marching to Rome,
where are they coming from? So they coming from every where.
He's in Naples right now. They come in from everywhere.
They are coming from everywhere, and they have horses and carts,

(01:14:05):
trucks and wagons. They even have a race car with
the machine gun mounted to it, and they have guys
riding on trains. That style of finesse. There's some style
in the machine gun races. And a lot of people
are just marching on foot too. Now, obviously this is

(01:14:26):
a cause for concern for some people in the government.
Two days after the Naples speech, former Italian Prime Minister
Antonio Silandra becomes aware of Mussolini's plans and he warns
the current prime minister that the Fascist leader was organizing
an armed march on the capitol Cilandra's intelligence told him
that Mussolini planned to demand the prime minister's resignation and
demand that he be appointed head of the government instead.

(01:14:48):
So the prime minister, obviously is also worried by this.
He goes to the King with this warning, and he
asks the King for permission to use the police in
military to suppress the fascists. The King refuses. So the
reason the King says no is that he had just
sat down with his Minister of War, General Armando Diaz. Now,
the general, who was not quite well, who was basically

(01:15:08):
a fascist, tells the King that if he asks the
army to stop Mussolini quote, the army will do its duty,
but it would be better not to put it to
the test. Basically, he's like another the army likes these
guys that you really shouldn't You really shouldn't try so,
King Victor Emmanuel the Third, the little Sword was not
like an ideological fascist. I know, it's very silly. Oh man,

(01:15:33):
what if that was his like tender profile, a little
little sword. He's not a fascist in the sense that
he doesn't believe in fascism. He believes in a monarchy,
and more specifically, he believes in a monarchy where he's
the monarch. Now by nineteen twenty two, the Kingdom of
Italy is in bad financial straits. World War One had
been a disaster for the country. The Great like not

(01:15:55):
the Great Depression, but like an economic collapse has hit
Europe as a result of the end of a war.
It's horrible in Munich. In this period of time to write.
Political violence in the streets had reached a fever pitch,
largely thanks to Mussolini's Black Shirts, and the king was
afraid there might be a civil war. More than anything,
he was worried about the rising Italian left. The Socialist
Party had a hundred and forty six members in the

(01:16:18):
Chamber of Deputies and the Communists had eleven, giving them
together nearly five times as much elected representation as the fascists. Now,
Communists and socialists aren't big fans of kings, and Victor
Emmanuel crudely calculated the fascist would let him continue to
be the king. He also, and this is important, calculated
that the middle class would back the fascists if it

(01:16:40):
meants crushing the left, and he was right on both counts.
Some of the king's generals did push back and demand
he signed orders to send the army out after the
black Shirts. The King threatened to abdicate at this and
sinuating that this would put Italy in the same position
as Russia had been in when the Czar abdicated. Basically
if you forced me to use the army and these fascists,
I will leave the throne. And you saw what happened

(01:17:02):
to Russia when you don't want those scary Bolsheviks being insurance. Yeah,
nang you It's like that's I see, that's why, like
at the end of the day, that's to me, that's
like the problem with like when you only understand the

(01:17:22):
world via like power broke, you're brokering in my you know, um,
like in my mind, like I take two weird comparison,
But if you take like Mike Pence's like position right now,
like them or President being impeached, it's like he if
for lack of better term, either way, he's a bit

(01:17:45):
because it's like, first of all, it's not like it's
not like Donald Trump has ever respected you, because you
do what the hell he tells you to do, you
know what I'm saying. So it's like this man, this
man was gonna let these they was yelling to kill you,
and he didn't stop it. And you ain't do ship, Mike,
you ain't do ship. You let this man and you're
still gonna back this man. You're a bitch. What I'm

(01:18:07):
saying at the one time he publicly disagrees with you,
and then he calls for your head and they want
to take it. And then and if they got the
chance there what and you didn't say nothing? You're a bitch.
You know what I'm saying. So it's like, I mean,
I'm saying that tonguey, you can understand what I'm trying
to say. Yeah, so it's like you're okay. So then
so then Nancy Pelosi and and and with it with
the Democrats, with the impeachment being and so it's almost

(01:18:30):
like them saying, yo, get your boy before we do, right,
So then so now and and then if he doesn't,
if he doesn't, if he doesn't stop the impeachment, you're
a bitch again, you know what I'm saying. If you
don't call for the moment, you're a bit, you feel me.
So it's just like, no matter what the moral little

(01:18:51):
story is, you should have never signed up to play
with this man, you know what I'm saying. So it
shouldn't have got here in the first place. Because all this,
all these people understand it's power brokering. So when you so,
if you King lit Sword, you feel me, you set
yourself up to a situation where these people only understand
power either way, you're a bit you know what I'm saying, Like,

(01:19:15):
I just I don't. I mean, I'm I hate saying
it like that. I just because it's like I'm not
trying to like throw shrapnel towards you know, I'm saying
a derogatory terms sword female, you know what I'm saying.
That's not what I'm trying to say. But I am saying,
just in street terms, that's what we mean. There's you
can't you've put yourself in a position where you can't

(01:19:36):
leave this unscathed. Yep. Yeah, And it's yeah, that's kind
of where we are here. And so the king and
also a lot of liberal elected leaders are like, Okay,
let's like let's let these people in. Let's let them
do it. They're not as scary as these leftists. So

(01:19:57):
let's left the fascists into the government. Can imagine being
you imagine being a king, whereas like my bloodline go
back to the fifteen hunt. It's and I'm no one
that's about to lose the I'm not gonna lose this crown,
you know what I'm saying. So I get the calculation
it's just you're it's just you're the you're the punk
in this. Yeah, you're starting the ball of fascism rolling

(01:20:19):
in Europe because you want to keep it thrown and
because a lot of other elected leaders. So when his
so his prime minister resigns when it becomes clear that
the king is not going to stop the fascist and
a bunch of former prime ministers, many of them liberals,
start petitioning the king to make them the prime minister
again so that they can make Mussolini their vice minister
to play kate the fascists. So like again, establishment politicians

(01:20:41):
cannot wait to make a deal with the fascists, like,
couldn't do it fast enough? Um, Yeah. The King says
no though, because the King has decided that Mussolini's going
to be the new premier, right that he's just going
to give him straight to the big job. And while
all this is going on, the black Shirts are marching,
so you're later Mussolini would claim to have marched on

(01:21:02):
foot with his soldiers all the way to the capital.
The reality is that he stayed in Milan for the
first day. A few days of the march, he was
seen at the theater just yeah, stay back here just
in case. Well, it's like how Donald Trump tells his
crowd to like march on the Capitol and then goes
back home. He's like, that's the problem, Like, do y'all
see this man behind bulletproof glass. They've got guns over there.

(01:21:26):
I'm not doing that, you know, Like why you followed
his man? Yeah? I feel like when you might get
shot anyway? Good luck? Yeah, yeah, I'm good. Don't you
see his glass? You? Yeah? So? Uh yeah. He stays
in Milan. He keeps a getaway car gassed up and
ready prepared to flee to Switzerland, actually more ready to
flee for Switzerland than he is to actually go to

(01:21:47):
Rome because he's sure they're going to crack down on this.
He's just making a gamble. He doesn't think it's gonna work.
Plan B. Eventually, though, after several days, he realizes that
the king is not going to institute martial law to
stop the march, and he'd won. Like this is a
dawning realization while he's in Milan that like, oh shit,
we're getting away with this. So that has to be

(01:22:08):
Donald Trump. He's very there's some similarities where he was
like wait, wait, wait, what wait, what kind of shocked
that this had worked? Mussolini starts scrambling to dress himself
up as the revolutionary leader. It now kind of seemed
like he was. And I'm gonna quote now from the
Warfare Historical Network. Mussolini's own Milan newspaper office, where he

(01:22:29):
was staying was barricaded with huge rolls of newsprint, paper
and barbed wire, and guarded by a curious mix of
fascist police and army troops. His second floor offices featured
hand grenades and desk trays, and the fluster Ducca himself
was seen brandishing a rifle. Melodramatically, he wrote in his
nineteen autobiography, there was a rapid exchange of shots. I
had my rifle loaded and went down to defend the doors.

(01:22:50):
Bullets whizzed around my ears. This is all a lie.
The reality is that the Milan police chief refused to
even arrest him. The mayor and commander of the Royal
Guard asked for a true with the fascists and withdrew
their men from around his office. Um, there was no
real crackdown taken on Mussolini directly whatsoever. Now, while his
militia march, they took over telephone switchboards, telegraph offices, water works,

(01:23:13):
and other government buildings. Um very little resistance to this.
About seven black Shirts are shot dead by the army
in various skirmishes um during this period of time, and
about a dozen people die over the course of the
march on Rome. Mussolini gets increasingly confident. His phone calls
start coming in from the Royal Palace from the king,
but he refuses the first three calls from the king

(01:23:33):
because Mussolini does understand how power works, and he knows
that when you got him on the ropes, you want him,
you got to bring him a little bit closer, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
we want to make a call. I'm not gonna take
that first call. I'm gonna take that second of that.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Get him close, get him close.
That's how you do it. So eventually he decided that
his men had occupied enough territory that he felt confident

(01:23:54):
the king was not going to turn around and shoot
him as a trader if he showed up in Rome.
So on the night of October twenty nine, Benito Mussolini
took a sleeper train from Milan to Rome for the
soon to be dictator. The march on Rome consisted of
a single fourteen hour train ride, so he does no marching.
He takes a train right into the capitol while his
guys are marching and fighting. No, I'm not marching to Rome.

(01:24:16):
Are you talking about marching? We had trains now. Benito
would later lie about every major aspect of the March
on Rome. The reality is that about seven black Shirts
again were shot and a dozen people died. Once they
were in power, the fascists claimed that three thousand people
had been killed in vicious fighting for control of the capital. Again,

(01:24:38):
just a lie to make it seem heroic. When he
finally met the King, Mussolini's first words were, your majesty,
will forgive my attire. I have come from the battlefield.
You came from Milan, dude, Yo, two points for style. Yeah, no,
it's a good line. It's a good came from battle.

(01:25:00):
Uh the buffet like, where are you fighting? Where I
told the army not to fight you? Yeah? So Victor
Emmanuel has to have known Mussolini was lying about that,
but he liked Mussolini. He considered him a quote man
of purpose, and he appointed him as Premier, Foreign Minister
and Interior minister. On October thirty one, the day after

(01:25:23):
Mussolini's meeting with the King, his black shirts finally arrived
in Rome. He had them turn around immediately and marched
to the train station so they could go home. As
the fascist columns withdrew, the king declared, Mussolini has saved
the nation. That is hilarious. Yeah, I recap that bus

(01:25:47):
set I sent y'all, got what I needed, then I
sent you back you saying, I said, it's great. It's
a great position to be in if you're Mussolini. He's
really right and high right now, because a lot of
Italians agreed that he'd saved the nation, because people are

(01:26:09):
really fucking dumb. And again you have to assume very
little access to accurate news about what was happening antennas now,
the Roman middle class was overjoyed by the lack of
violence and by the fact that the dreaded anarchy and
the threat of a communist revolution had been avoided. The
stock market rose on news of of Mussolini's power grab,
and I should note here that on January six, the

(01:26:31):
Russell two thousand index of small capitalization stocks rose three
point seven percent, while the s and p five point
six percent. Now, this had less to do with the
stock market loving the fact that there had been an
attempt to take over the capital and more to do
with it loving stability, because January six ended with everybody
repudiating the president and the certainty that there would be

(01:26:51):
a transfer of power. And but that's kind of the
same reason why the stock markets raised when Mussolini like
took power. It's because someone was in power, there was certainty. Yeah,
that's that. I love that. I love that you brought
that up, because like if you if you want to
talk about you know, big corporations, you know one percenter's

(01:27:12):
high money, they are still beholden to a stable government
that will um like affirm and support their contracts. Like
if I got contracts all over the place and you
breeched this contract, I want to be able to sue
the crap out of you. So I gotta take you
to a course that means I have to have a

(01:27:32):
government stable enough that says so so so yeah so
so so. It has no no moral value either way.
I just need y'all to chill, and if and if
and if there's somebody that can stop at you. Now
that y'all agree, cool, I don't care what you agree with,
just as long as y'all agree so that my money

(01:27:53):
can keep coming. So that's that. That that that point
about the stock market, that's dope, man. That that's the
type of stuff that like, you know, I always always
cringe any anytime any leader, I don't care who you
are saying, well, the stock market rose. This is like man,
like that guy, I gotta do not they just want
you all to do. You know what I'm saying like that,
that doesn't that's not the indicator that you that you

(01:28:14):
say it is. Yep, it's not um and it's it's yeah,
it's a sign. It's a sign that the people who
are rich are confident they're going to continue to be rich.
And that's that's that's where fascism's power traditionally comes from,
and not as much from the rich as it does
from the middle class. The middle class of Italy backed

(01:28:35):
Mussolini for the same reason he meants stability. Right. Maybe
they weren't all fascist. Most of them weren't. Most of
them had never really like, hadn't supported the fascist prior
to him coming into power, But now that he was
in power, it means the communists aren't gonna met win.
Means I'm not gonna lose my business. I'm not gonna
lose like whatever like that because I'm in the middle
clad got shipped to lose, right, that's what the middle classes,

(01:28:56):
you're the ship to lose class um out. Yeah, the
middle class was in Italy, as it has been in
every country that's been taken over by fascists, the chief
base of fascist support. Um And this is true again
everywhere fascism gains political power. In March of two thousand
and sixteen, and NBC survey found that only about a
third of Trump supporters in the primaries had a household

(01:29:17):
income at or below the national media and income of
fifty dollars a year um and that stayed more or
less the same for the election. Um And again you
can look at the same kind of things happened in Germany. Um.
He say it was the same class that supported him. Yeah,
Like it's important. And again another thing I love you
just brought up. Brought this up too, because it's like,

(01:29:39):
when you're talking about somebody that lives below the poverty line,
you don't have time to be listening to whatever the
politicians are saying like, I'm trying to secure my next meal,
So there's not a they don't you don't have the
luxury to go lobby and and hands and do all

(01:30:01):
the things that someone who has uh, you know, liquid capital,
like leisure capital, be able to do. So that's the
middle class, you know what I'm saying. So like so yeah,
it's just yeah, it's same thing like us critique in
our own silo to be like, man, don't you can't
just call this you can't just say it was all
these poor these poor was not put him in power
because they hungry. They working, These poor people working, they

(01:30:25):
got time for audience anything. It's the fucking what the
fascists are saying to the middle class, to the comfortable.
It is saying like, you see that poor motherfucker who
doesn't have time to think about any of this because
he's living hand in mouth. The communists are gonna make
that be you. You know, that's the that's the fucking
pitch um. And it works every time, or it works

(01:30:47):
well enough that it becomes a problem every time. Maybe
it's not gonna work this time. We'll fucking see um.
Because Trump was leading middle class support in I don't
know what he really was man. Yeah, so that's good.
We owe that too. Behind the bastards, thank you. Yeah,
I take total credit for Biden's victory. Thank you. So
um so yeah. Fascism generally cloaks itself as a working

(01:31:11):
class movement of laborers and hard men doing hard jobs.
It's always the image, right, the imagery of like a
guy working at a steel miller some ship. But that's
not where their support actually comes from. The support of
fascism comes from a lot of like the middle class
and the a lot of the affluent, not all of
the affluent, because a lot of the very rich are
more establishment people. They're not gonna back. They'll back a

(01:31:31):
fascist when they're in power because again, they don't want
to lose their ships needs to build, Like yeah, they're
they're up until it becomes clear the fascists are gonna
win there, you know, they're gonna back whatever the order
was previously. The middle class is scared and anxious and
always being pushed from both directions, so they're the ones
who really will go with a fascist. And the first
person in history to really lay this out was Luigi Salvatorelli.

(01:31:56):
Now he was an editorial writer for an anti fascist
newspaper named La Stampa. I'm gonna quote now from an
article on the March of Rome by scholar Emilio Gentile
talking about Luigi Salvatarelli and how he came to this
conclusion quote. A year before the March on Rome, Salvatarelli
understood that fascism was a new revolutionary movement, and that

(01:32:16):
it organized and mobilized a new social class, the petit bourgeoisie,
equally hostile to the proletariat and the upper middle classes.
Salvatarelli had labeled fascism reactionary Bolshevism, a danger today infinitely
more real than communist Bolshevism. He had since that fascist
ambitions went beyond the bourgeoisie, anti proletarian reaction and the

(01:32:38):
protection of the middle class. The dictatorial ambition of fascism,
Salvatarelli wrote in December nineteen one, had already shown its
face in parts of Italy, where the Fascist Party was
imposing its dictatorial will by crushing opponents to whom they
denied any political or civil right, including the right to live.
In July nineteen when not even Mussolini had thought about

(01:32:59):
taking or power. Salvatarelli denounced the ongoing anti state attack
perpetrated by fascism that was endangering the very existence of
the Italian state in order to establish a regime of
violence throughout the country. Immediately after the March on Rome,
Salvatarelli stated that the fascist government was determined to establish
a one sided dictatorship because it did not want any

(01:33:21):
political activity to be carried out outside of fascism. Salvatarelli
saw in fascism, as he wrote on November first, nineteen,
the true and proper characteristic of a political movement, of
a party organized for its own ends of a specific
social class, and that aimed at the conquest of power
on its home was determined to fling itself against the

(01:33:41):
existing state in the name of the presumed greater good
of the nation. Mm hmm, Yeah, it's a lot there,
There's a lot there. He suggested something that I the
thought in that that the thought never crossed my mind
that at as there were so many big words, it's

(01:34:03):
hard for me to nail down exactly where I heard it.
But he almost suggested the possibility of a two party
system in a fascist state. When he was like this
fascism impresses. It was almost like he's it sounded redundant,
where he was kind of like this one party power

(01:34:25):
fascist state, as if it's possible to have a two
party system because that at the time. At the time,
fascists were a part of the government right, and a
lot of people, even a lot of like liberals, were like, well,
they're not that dangerous. They're just one other party. They
have their view. This is that. That's it's that old
thing of like, well they have an opinion and everybody
gets to have their appew and like we have to

(01:34:47):
listen to them. They have they get the freedom to
speak their peace, and what Salvatrelli is saying is their peace.
What they're saying they believe is that only their opinion matters,
and they'll kill you if you have a different one.
Got it. So he's at them in the government. So
he's trying to say, are y'all hearing what he's saying? Yeah, yeah, really,
did you hear what he just said? This is not
just said yeah, yeah, if we let them, they will

(01:35:10):
be the only party, right um. And he's and he's
also saying like they are their strength comes from a
class right, and because the a lot of the communists
at the time had been like, had written off the
fascists as any kind of real movement, and it even
written off the March on Rome. We'll talk about that
later in the series. We're gonna do a big episode
at the end on sort of what we can learn

(01:35:30):
from all this. But there was a big failure among
a lot of people in the left and even anti
fascists to see fascists as the threat that they really were,
because number one, they were so darn silly, but number two, like, well,
you know, I'm looking at this from this Marxist analysis,
and it tells me that all these classes like it
forms it. I don't. I don't see this as a

(01:35:53):
legitimate political movement that is speaking to a class that
has a large body of the populace. Hind it. Okay,
that was the peace I was missing when you add
the Marxists like glasses on there and you go, oh, yeah, well,
who's where where do they fit? Like where the cause
can't be real because they don't fit him, none of
these Yeah, And there's there's this attitude again we'll talk

(01:36:14):
about us later among a lot of Marxists that like well,
fascism is just the inevitable in the state of capitalism.
And one of the things Salvatorelli saying, and a lot
of things will say, is like, that's not exactly true.
Fascism is pro capitalism a lot of the time. It's
also anti capitalism a decent chunk of the time. And
that's how it gets a lot of people on board
with it. Um it's it's it is speaking to a
specific class in the country who feels edged out by

(01:36:39):
both sides, who feels oppressed by the rich, and who
feels that the left is coming for what little they
do have. Right, that still gets on board with this ship.
And you have to see that they are looking out
for their own that that that they have legit like
interests that they see being threatened, like that there this
is not just some sort of plot by the bankers

(01:36:59):
to take our for themselves. Right, the fascists are speaking
to legitimate um, you know, even if they're wrong, legitimately
felt exactly like those are legitimate. Those are legitimate emotions
that that you are actually in your body experiencing, whether
that's the reality, like I say that about like, um,

(01:37:21):
there's this this, you know, this discussion about like, well,
you know, race is a social construct, therefore it's not real.
Therefore racism is not real. And I'm like, okay, yes,
you're right, race is a social construct, but what I'm
experiencing in my body is real. It's you know what
I'm saying. So I love it. I love that because
it's like, that's that's what you can't dismiss about these

(01:37:43):
people that are so riled up that they would storm
a capital is it's that what they're experiencing in their
bodies exct to what you said is being is you're
pressed on both sides, and yeah, you feel that. At
least you feel it. At least this person is saying.
These group of people are saying, I feel you, and
I have an answer for you. Yeah, And I have
an answer for you, and it's let's kill the left

(01:38:05):
and take over the government. You know. He's like, yeah, easy, um, yeah,
and that's why you know the six happened. Um So
Mussolini uh takes office um two weeks after the March
on Rome on November UH November sixteenth, nineteen twenty two.

(01:38:28):
He stands before the Chamber of Deputies to present his
new list of ministers. So he picks out all the
people who are going to run the government, all fascists. Um,
now the new Prime Minister. Mussolini begins his speech to
the Chamber of Deputies by attacking the nation's elected leaders,
calling them old and deaf and incompetent, and he even
threatened them with violence, stating, with three hundred thousand armed

(01:38:51):
men determined to carry out my orders, I could have
punished those who have vilified and tarnished fascism. I could
make this deaf and gray hall filled exclusively with fascists.
I could, but I have not, at least not for now.
Shut up, Shut up, gramps, I'll slapped the ship out
of you now. He promised his as symbol deputies that
his new fascist Italy would ensure law and order, strengthen

(01:39:14):
the military, and crushed the left. The next day, the
Chamber of Deputies conducted a vote of confidence, which Mussolini
won three hundred and six to hundred and sixteen. So
again he three, He's like, I can fucking kill you
if I want to, and they're like, yeah, come up,
put it, Yes, I voting I for you, now your life. Yeah,

(01:39:37):
I'm going to read a quote from an article by
Emilio Gentile about um anti fascism in Italy and about
the March on Rome quote. Benito Mussolini could now claim
that power was bestowed on him by democratic means, even
though it was claimed that many votes were cast out
of terror and intimidation from the fascists, which he had
literally threatened the entire chamber. Bonito, Benito was the and

(01:40:00):
of the hour. He was, in fact, imminently a product
of a particular crisis, World War One, and a special
social class, the petty bourgeoisie. Mussolini's capture of power was classic.
He was the right national leader at the right moment.
By nineteen twenty three, Mussolini's consolidation of power was complete.
Italy was a fascist state, and any resistance to the

(01:40:20):
regime from then on would take the form of mere insurgency.
In total, between nineteen eighteen and nineteen twenty three, Italian
anti fascists killed some four hundred and twenty eight fascists. Meanwhile,
Mussolini's Black Shirts murdered at least three thousand people in
the same period. Most of those people were not anti fascists.
There were members of trade unions, journalists, local politicians, anyone

(01:40:41):
who stood in the way between fascists and ultimate power.
And again we've talked a bit about why the Italian
anti fascist didn't succeed, and that's a longer conversation than
we can have today. I think you're right that a
lack of a a lack of something with momentum to
oppose fascism, true momentum, was a part of it. Um
A lack of uh state support is another part of it.

(01:41:05):
There's a thing that some folks on the kind of
who are are um anti fascist and anarchist activists in particular,
we'll talk about called the three way fight, which is
the idea that we're not just fighting against the fascist,
we're fighting against the state, and we're fighting against the
fascist because the state is also deeply harmful and deeply
injurious to life and used. That was particularly very strongly

(01:41:25):
felt by people during the blm uh risings. Right like,
we have these fascists, these proud boys and stuff, coming
in the street to do violence to us, we also
have the cops doing it. We're in a three way fight, right,
very valid way to look at things. It's also an
almost impossible situation to win because the fascists aren't in
a three way fight the fascist if they're smart, they're

(01:41:45):
not dumb. Fascists sometimes are um and maybe our fascists
have taken a turn for the dumb, let's hope. But
the smart fascists get to power with some degree of
legitimacy and legality and then use the state to crush
their enemies. But is they don't want a three way fight, right,
that's a problem. Yeah, because yeah, because yeah, because the

(01:42:05):
government is just a weapon. It's not because it's just
a weapon. Yeah. Wow, she'sh man, I need a shower. Yeah, okay, Dad,
please tell me you're done. Yeah, no, I'm done. That's
the end of episode. Dog. It's like the it's just

(01:42:28):
the party that feels like these people give you this
when you're trying to to stop, when you're the ones
trying to stop an insurrection. It's like, these people give
you no you have no safe faith, They give you
no breaks like that. You can never stop and take
a breath because they're gonna read that as weakness. And

(01:42:49):
then next thing you know, somebody tying up Nancy Pelosi.
And it's not that I'm a Nancy Pelosi fan. It's
just you shouldn't be able to tie Nancy Pelosi get
up saying how that should happen? That's not as should happen.
You feel me like, I just this and it's not
that I'm a fan of the US government. However, however,

(01:43:09):
there are worse things to yes. So it's just like
there's yeah, like you said, like you feel like you're
in a three way fight, and my fight is is
especially as someone who would say organizationally and factually, my
black life matters, right is that? That's all I'm trying

(01:43:31):
to say, is Nigga, can I live? Like God damn it, man?
Can I live? You know? And so you you my goals.
I feel like in a lot of ways if it
comes to like how do I say this, Like, I'm
not looking for as a as a black person, if

(01:43:52):
you will, I'm not. I'm just looking for my rights
to be honored. Yeah, that's all I'm trying to say,
Just honor my rights. Like no, there's no platform of
a read construction of the government short of just stop killing, Like,
let me be a citizen like you dog, Like, that's

(01:44:12):
all tries. Can you just let me be a citizen
like you? Bro? That's that's all I'm saying. So so
when you when you try to when you pit me
against a fascist movement, that's saying, well, no, our goal
is to overthrow this whole thing and be in charge,
and no, you don't get rights somehow the government choosing you.
It's like it's hard. It's almost like all all I

(01:44:34):
get to do now is I got homeboys that live
in Atlanta, And what they saying is they finda just
grabbed a popcorn and watch the civil war between these
fascists and the and the police. Like I'm just because
it's like I don't I want to be on the
side of the government, but the government on the side
of me either, you know what I'm saying. So it's
just you just in this weird predicament. But I know

(01:44:56):
who I don't want to win. Yeah, And this is
where we get to the problem of the side opposing
the fascists has done a lot of good, uh, And
it is important to oppose fascists. What's actually needed to
beat them opposing in this one thing and it can
slow them down. What's needed to beat them is to

(01:45:17):
provide something else that is not the state as it exists,
because that's Um, but that you can also get people
on enough. People on board with the fascists don't have
oxygen anymore, right, the fascist it's like a fire right
where you've got a bunch of dry fucking brush and
trees and ship and oxygen, and as long as you

(01:45:37):
have those things, the fire is going to spread. And
the way to counter that is to fucking pour some
fucking water on it. You know. Um, that's a good analogy, man.
You need to reduce the area in which it can spread,
and it's human terrain, right, So by the only way
to reduce the human terrain the ship can spread in

(01:45:59):
is to give pull something else. Yes, yes, because they
don't have anything right, Yes, that's what I was going
back to when he was asking me, like, why did
this fails? Like they didn't give them nothing else. Yeah,
it just said don't do this. Well, then what do
we do because we got now ain't working. Yes, So
it's either the government that led us into World War
One or some people who are saying we should do

(01:46:21):
what they're doing in Russia right now. And that doesn't
look great. Um, And you know most of the liberals
are like on the side of like, well, we'll just
we'll just keep tweaking the system that got us into
World War One, And a lot of people are like,
that doesn't seem good. Do I need I need, I
need an option deed, Jake, Yeah, I'm poor my government.

(01:46:42):
J I have no hope for the future. So Jake,
this guy is saying it'll be different. Dr Jacob, let's
see if it's different. Yes, exactly. Uh, It's like it's
like when you're watching a basketball game and it's your
two least favorite teams playing and you want both of
them to lose that there is a way for one
of them, not like somebody has to win. So there

(01:47:04):
has there has to be some sort of interference that
makes it so that the game can't even happen. Otherwise
you're going to just pick your your Joe Biden. You
get stuck with Joe Biden, so you guys, otherwise you
get Joe Biden. Nobody wants that either, you know, like,
that's man, That's what I'm like, Look like, do do
not say I'm glad nobody has suggested that like Joe

(01:47:28):
Biden is just a left wing of Trump. To some
people know, he is a consolation prodecation of the consolation
we settle for Joe Biden, like this thing ain't to
come in Messiah. He he to disciple Bartholomew at best

(01:47:48):
conscious even he's not even Peter John like son, that's
a deep cut boy, but it's not even Paul because
like you, Timothy, you ain't even write no book in
the New test I'm cheering up in my whole face,
is right, this is so funny. That's a that's a

(01:48:11):
that's a that's a that's an evangelical joke. So that's
the first part of this behind therection, part motherfucking one.
Proper Where can people follow you? Oh Lord, please follow
me at prop hip hop on all them things? Um yeah,
all the all of the twitters and instagrams. Um you
could my website proper dot com backslize coffee. Yeah, that

(01:48:35):
is my website and we do coffee stuff there. Um
got some pods. Uh politics were prop which is um
political analysis just from like you know, if you survived
eighth grade, you could you understand your politics? You know,
I'm just kind of giving you political analysis. Yeah, that's

(01:48:58):
that's that's my that's my thanks, and uh, well we'll
be back soon, Robert. We will be back soon. We'll
be back to talk about the Munich Beer Hall push
um next week UM, and then we'll talk about some
other ship. And then we're gonna end this talking in
broad about why fascists win when they win, and why

(01:49:19):
fascists lose when they lose. Your gift to the world,
Robert h like like like socks, A nice pair of socks.
Robert doesn't know how to take compliments as you. I'm
just going to run away from my computer now, goodbye.

(01:49:41):
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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Mussolini's March on Rome: The First Fascist Insurrection