Are you joking? Every scholar of Fascism will tell you that Fascist Italy inherited numerous colonies from the prefascist period: the Dodecanese Islands, Eritrea, Libya, Somalia, and arguably a portion of Tianjin, and later Fascist Italy added Fiume in 1924 and Albania, Ethiopia, and Tavolara in the 1930s. The very expression ‘mutilated victory’ was quickly adopted by the Fascists because they were outraged that the Kingdom of Italy didn’t gain more territory from World War I. Did you seriously not know this?

From the Dodecanese Islands to Libya, to Eritrea, the Italian state’s colonial holdings were testing grounds for strategies of governance and repression that would characterize [Fascist] domestic and occupied territories during World War II.^13^

(Source.)

[–] Deceptichum@kbin.social -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

More Lemmygraders? Yawn

Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. Take away imperialism from fascism and you still have Franco and Salazar. Take away colonialism and you still have the Balkan fascism of the Ustashes. Add to the Italian fascism a radical anti-capitalism (which never much fascinated Mussolini) and you have Ezra Pound. Add a cult of Celtic mythology and the Grail mysticism (completely alien to official fascism) and you have one of the most respected fascist gurus, Julius Evola.

Source.

[–] AnarchoBolshevik@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well, I can thank you for sharing this unique perspective on the matter with me, even though I do find some of its conclusions either unconvincing or bizarre (‘Franchi (whose real name was Edgardo Sogno) was a monarchist, so strongly anti-Communist that after the war he joined very right-wing groups, and was charged with collaborating in a project for a reactionary coup d’état. Who cares? Sogno still remains the dream hero of my childhood.’ Seriously‽), but that still doesn’t justify hostility to a conclusion that’s very easy to reach. The statement ‘Fascism was a form of colonialism’ may be somewhat of an oversimplification, but I gave you some very good reasons why there was nothing ‘utterly ridiculous’ about it.

You didn’t answer my second question whether you know of Fascist Italy’s colonial history or not. So, you already knew of the ‘reconquest’ of Libya, the massacre at Addis Ababa, the forced marriages in Somalia, the concubinages in Eritrea, Benito Mussolini referring to Emperor Haile Selassie as a ‘Bolshevik pig’ in front of a crowd of thousands, and even the unofficial annexation of Tavolara in 1934?

On a side note, respectable scholars such as Robert Paxton would consider Iberia’s 20th century anticommunist régimes to have been at best parafascist, in part because they weren’t adventurer‐conquerors, but also for more complex reasons. For example:

After 1945 the Falange became a colorless civic solidarity association, normally referred to simply as the Movimiento. In 1970 its very name was abolished. By then Franquist Spain had long become an authoritarian régime dominated by the army, state officials, businessmen, landowners, and the Church, with almost no visible fascist coloration.^8^

(Source.)

[–] bloodfart@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Ur-fascism is about semiotics, not history.

There’s a bunch of great stuff in there, but you gotta read the twenty pages before and after any quote to get what’s being said and why.