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

• 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

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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 ROME1922

• 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 FascismMedical care

• DopolavoroLeisure, concerts

• The Ethiopian War 1935-1936