MASS CULTURE AND THE
RISE OF MODERN
DICTATORS
CULTURE FOR THE MASSES
• Wartime boost for mass media tools
• Public craving for news & non-fiction
stories
• Thirst for practical knowledge and upward
mobility
• Night schools
1920s FILMMAKING
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Thriving international business
Film industry specialization
Vertical integration
Star system
FILMS AND THE COMMUNIST
UTOPIA
• Promising a shining future
• Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948)
Potemkin (1925)
• Government-subsidized documentaries
• Death of Lenin (1924)
• NEP (1921-1928) – temporary
compromise with capitalist methods
• Commanding Heights of the Economy
FASCISM ON THE MARCH IN
ITALY
• Political chaos and postwar discontent
• Devastating human loss (5,1%) combined with
inflationary pressures and unemployment
• Mutilated Victory: anger at Versailles Treaty
• Slump of the early 1920s
THE RED TWO YEARS
(biennio rosso)
• Italy paralyzed by a wave of strikes and
workers’ occupations of factories
• Disturbances began with food riots in
Central and Northern Italy – June 1919
• Factory workers demanded setting up of
factory councils – Socialists hopelessly
divided
FEAR OF BOLSHEVISM
• Propertied classes feared that Italy was turning
Bolshevik
• Government perceived to be abetting and not
resisting revolution
• Great Expectations….General strike in Turin
(April 1920), army mutiny in Ancona (June
1920), land occupations in the South (Fall 1920)
FASCIST SQUADS
• Early Fascism: a movement? A party?
• From the start nationalistic and
imperialistic
• Stood for a revision of the peace
settlement -- issue of Fiume
• Dressed in black, driving around in lorries
• Behaving like bullies
BENITO MUSSOLUNI
(1883-1945)
• Son of a Socialist blacksmith and a devout
Catholic teacher
• Gift as a polemical writer during WWI
• March 1919 founded “Fasci di
Combattimento” against traditional parties
• Program drew from both Left and the
Rights of Italian politics: 8-Hour working
day, minimum wage, nationalistic rethoric
MUSSOLINI TACTICS AND
STRATEGY
• Revolution or Counter-Revolution?
• Mussolini spoke in imprecise terms about
synthesis between free-market and a new
form of working-class organizations
• Blended the threat of violence with the
promise of moderation and stability
MARCH ON ROME
1922
• 30,000 marched on Rome – motley
collection of uniforms and headgear
• Myth that 3,000 died
• Mussolini arrived by train – confirmed PM
by King Victor E. III
• Mussolini and Parliament:
Acerbo Law of 1923
TOTALITARIAN STATE
• All-embracing conception of politics
• “Everything within the state, nothing
outside the state, nothing against the
state”
• Legal system: freedom of expression and
associations destroyed
• Labor relations: Corporations
• Public work schemes – massive
propaganda campaigns
MUSSOLINI MYTHMAKING
• Mussolini “The Man”
Exercise vs. frailty (ulcers)
• Mussolini “The Father”
Obedient wife and 5 children
• Mussolini “The Leader”
18 hour-working day, voracious reading
of newspapers, playing the violin, and
watching favorite films
ITALIAN SOCIETY
• Winning over Italy’s Youth
“Believe, obey, Fight”
• Women under Fascism
Medical care
• Dopolavoro
Leisure, concerts
• The Ethiopian War 1935-1936