The Italians enacted anti-Jewish legislation in 1938, in order to please Hitler. For the almost 2-year history of fascism prior, there were no such laws. There were Jews in the Fascist Party.
They did look down on Ethiopians and other Africans, but so did the Brits at the same time. (I'd say race was actually more central to the ideology of the British Empire than that of Fascist Italy.) They also looked back at a mythologized national heritage, but ethnicity was not the main thing. In the Doctine of Fascism (the text of which I posted a while ago) by Il Duce, race just does not appear.
Italy actually had one of the best records in Europe during the Holocaust, with 80% of Italian Jews surviving. By the way, according to Nazi ideology, aren't Italians something near to Untermenschen?
--- Marvin Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> wrote:
> I haven't studied these movements. But my impression
> is the Italian fascists
> harkened back to ancient Rome in the same way the
> Nazis recalled the
> Teutonic tribes and the Spanish the glory that was
> Castile and Aragon. They
> similarly defined themselves in terms of their
> "blood" lineage and thought
> the non-white races (eg. Ethipians and Moroccans)
> were inferior. There was
> Fascist discrimination against Italian Jews, mostly
> under Nazi pressure -
> Jews were vitually absent in Spain - but, on balance
> I agree it would be a
> stretch to describe the Spanish and Italian
> fascists, as you would the
> Nazis, as "fervently" racist with "genocidal
> impulses".
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Chris Doss" <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com>
> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2006 8:02 AM
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] What is you know what ?
>
>
> >I agree on all points, except that Fascist
> nationalism
> > is not necessarily race-based. Race was not
> central to
> > Italian (and Spanish, I think) fascism. It is a
> Nazi
> > trope.
> >
> > --- Marvin Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca>
> wrote:
> >
> >> My two cents:
> >>
> >> 1. A bourgeois democratic government is
> >> characterized by a number of
> >> institutions not directly controlled by the state
> -
> >> an independent press,
> >> independent trade unions, independent judiciary,
> >> independent political
> >> parties, etc. These institutions may be vigorous
> or
> >> docile, but they do not
> >> directly take their orders from officials of the
> >> ruling party.
> >>
> >> 2. A repressive regime lacks all of the above.
> There
> >> are no unions, no
> >> media, no judges, no political parties which are
> >> independent of the state.
> >> In this sense, the PRC is still a repressive
> regime,
> >> but one which is
> >> loosening its controls, or "liberalizing". It
> >> illustrates that there can be
> >> differences in the degree of control as between
> >> repressive states and over
> >> the life of each state, often depending on how
> >> beleaguered by internal or
> >> external forces the regime feels itself to be.
> >> Right-wing regimes often
> >> arise out of military coups backed by the
> >> bourgeoisie against an insurgent
> >> mass movement from below. Repressive left-wing
> >> regimes were the product of
> >> social revolutions which expropriated the
> >> bourgeoisie.
> >>
> >> 3. Fascism is a particular kind of right-wing
> >> repressive state. It's
> >> defining characteristics seem to me to be a very
> >> fervent race-based
> >> nationalism which makes it susceptible to
> genocidal
> >> impulses; an
> >> expansionist foreign policy; a readiness equal to
> >> the left to organize and
> >> mobilize the masses in support of its objectives;
> >> and a more tightly
> >> controlled bourgeoisie than in the case of (2)
> >> above..
> >>
> >> Obviously, there are hybrid states which combine
> >> elements of the above.
> >> Israel has characteristics common to (3), but so
> >> long as it has institutions
> >> which operate independently of the state, it
> can't
> >> be called ""fascist", if
> >> the term is to mean anything more more than an
> >> epithet. Iran is another
> >> complex state, which defies easy
> characterization.
> >>
> >>
> >
>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: "Chris Doss" <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com>
> >> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> >> Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2006 7:44 AM
> >> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] What is you know what ?
> >>
> >>
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > --- Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > There
> >> >> have been many
> >> >> non-fascist states that were a lot worse live
> in
> >> >> than Mussolini's Italy.
> >> >
> >> > Yep. On the Evil Dictatorships scale,
> Mussolini's
> >> > Italy was actually on the low end. Maybe
> >> comparable to
> >> > contemporary Egypt. Much less repressive than,
> >> say,
> >> > modern China. (I am not anti-China, just to
> make
> >> that clear.)
> >> >
> >> > Nu, zayats, pogodi!
> >> >
> >> >
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> >>
> >>
> >> ___________________________________
> >>
> >
>
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> >
> >
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> >
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