Why have historians of fascism paid so much attention to the Arditi, the Italian storm troopers of the First World War?
“The first nucleus of the Fascist military organization can be seen in the personal bodyguard if unemployed arditi”, which Mussolini recruited to garrison the Popolo d’Italia” (Kallis 396). Moreover, the Arditi firstly had represented a Royal Italian Army. The Arditi were funded by Mussolini and a large amount of the members of Royal Army later had joined the fascists.
The Arditi del Popolo appeared to be the first anti-fascist association in Italy, which emerged from the Roman part of the Italian Arditi. Therefore, the Arditi del Popolo received a great encouragement and protection from the non-politicized members of society that belonged to the working class. The organization was a natural, visceral reaction to the activity of the fascist divisions; as a result, it was mostly appreciated and embraced by every district that had been under the pressure for a long time. These representatives of the working class saw the activity of the Arditi del Popolo as a kind of retaliation for the wrongdoings and therefore, the actions of the organization were fundamental for their survival.
The fascist regime aimed to achieve constant mobilization; moreover, they had followed the particularly congressional path towards obtaining control by the means of putting in order a specific model of revolutionary nationalism and overruled the democratic concept of class conflict. As a result, the fascism had presented an image of inventive and multi-faceted occurrence. This and various other reasons had led to the consolidation of the fascist ‘squadrism’, which Is considered to be an instrument for the rebirth of the Italian morality. The Arditi del Popolo had achieved its first success in the armament of Viterbo opposite to the Perugian blackshirt ambush; their actions had led to a separation of the fascist movement between the urban and rural fascists. The fascist authoritarian could not allow this and, as a result, the activity of the Arditi del Popolo was forced to diminish.
What strategies did the Nazis use to make new German race? How similar and how different was the Nazi case to the one of fascist Italy?
The primary dissimilarity between the Fascism and the Nazism is the approach towards race. The main idea of the Nazis philosophy was a purity of German race while the representatives of the Italian fascism essentially denied the concept of race in general. The ideology of German Nazism was oriented on the predominance of a certain nation; and, as the history shows, the dictators of the fascist regime had no limits and did not stop at the borders of human life in order to achieve the creation of a perfect and pure nation. The Nazis chose to eliminate the representatives of every nation that did not fit the definition of a superior race; while the Fascists were “fueled by nationalism as well but it did not reject other nationalities, of course, under condition that they accepted the culture and language of the superior nation’” (Griffin 436). Instead of creating an ideal and pure Italian nation, Mussolini had aimed his efforts towards the enlargement of the territory of his country.
Works Cited
Kallis, Aristotle. “Racial Politics and Biomedical Totalitarianism in Interwar Europe.” Blood and Homeland: Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in Central and Southeast Europe. Ed. Marius Turda and Paul Weidling. 2008. 389-415. Print.
Griffin, Roger. “Tunnel Visions and Mysterious Trees: Modernist Projects of National and Racial Regeneration, 1880-1939.” Blood and Homeland: Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in Central and Southeast Europe. Ed. Marius Turda and Paul Weidling. 2008. 417-456. Print.