[Music]

Europe 2018

from Austria to sweet hungry to Greece

ultra-nationalism is on the rise

fueled by xenophobia and a promise to

fight for the rights of white Europeans

extremist groups are emerging from the

fringes and on to the public stage it's

a jarring sight but the world has been

here before

the ideologies that drive these groups

can be traced back almost 100 years to

one man

Italy's Benito Mussolini

[Applause]

mussolini has been dismissed as a

buffoon

small-time tyrant who ruled in the

shadow of Hitler and Stalin but he was

no one's disciple

we heard for years that Hitler taught

Mussolini everything he knew in fact

it's the opposite years before the Third

Reich Mussolini was the architect of a

movement that would plunge the continent

into darkness he called it fascism[A1]

[Music]

[Applause]

from undermining judges to[A2]

indoctrinating children mussolini

pioneered tactics that other dictators

would use to seize power mussolini

absolutely wrote the blueprint for how

to destroy a democracy how did this son

of a blacksmith come to write key

chapters of the dictators playbook and

turn himself into a modern Caesar

dictatorships have had an incredible

impact in the past century these

dictators ended up learning from one[A3]

another they're all different but many

use the same tactics the use of terror,

propaganda, controlling the elites and a cult of

personality use violence these

are tools that dictators use staying

power

[Music]

Benito Mussolini is born in 1883 in the

northern Italian village of Pradeep

like many Italians his family lives in

almost abject poverty his father works

hard as a blacksmith but making ends

meet is difficult much of Italy remains

in almost feudal society while it has a[A4]

limited democracy

most of the power rests with the king

and his ministers

the majority of the population is rural

and poor
under these difficult conditions

Mussolini grows into a violent child

there were elements of his personality

that we could already see in a pretty

young age including a kind of attraction

towards violence I mean this guy's

expelled at the age of 11 for knife in a

fellow classmate it's something that he

does again and again he keeps getting in

trouble for knifing people as he becomes

a young men much of his anger is

directed at the backward nature of his

country as millions of his countrymen

abandon Italy to seek a better life

abroad Mussolini becomes determined to

change his country for the better but

he's not sure how even though he wasn't

religious himself he saw himself very

similar to Hitler as a man of Providence

someone almost divinely appointed to

heal Hitler's riffs like his father

before him he is drawn to an extreme

form of socialism

it calls for a violent revolution that

will strip the rich of their wealth and

share it with the poor now Mussolini had

a rebellious hothead temper he wanted an

overthrow of everything he was a

disrupter

this is a violent man willing to use

violent means either politically or

personally right from the start his

violent nature brings him into frequent

conflict with the law July 1903 after

moving to nearby Switzerland Mussolini

is arrested for allegedly trying to

incite a revolution he's deported back

to Italy I think it's interesting that

he's in and out of prison a lot so by

the time that he's twenty years old he's

come back and lived a pretty rough

existence hiding from the police on

trial in a number of cases but

Mussolini's more than just a

troublemaker from a young age he's a

gifted writer and as he harnessed his craft

he discovers how language can be a tool

for shaping a nation in time he makes a

name for himself as a prominent

socialist journalist his skill as a

journalist was absolutely central he

knew what to play up he knew how to play

on people's fears he knew how to play on

people's dreams

in 1912 Mussolini is hired as editor of

Avanti Italy's leading socialist paper

under his leadership circulation doubles

he should be on top of the world

he's a crusading journalist for one of

Italy's leading papers but his faith in

socialism is wavering it seems to be

moving too slowly for the man of action

he's exposed to a new movement that

celebrates speed, power and violence its

followers call themselves futurists and

their ideas will contribute to the rise

of fascism. Futurism was an artistic

cultural intellectual movement founded

in 1909 by a group of Italian artists

they wanted an art and culture of speed

of movement of Technology the future is

to celebrate action-adventure violence

and its ultimate expression war. Before

World War one many people welcomed the

idea of war without knowing how awful it

would be of course as a kind of

cleansing force for the decadence that

ruled in society there's a famous quote

from when the futurist manifestos war is

the hygiene of the world

August 1914 the futurists rejoice as the

carnage of World War one begins

Mussolini calls for Italy to enter the

conflict but the Socialists opposed the

war knowing that the working class on

both sides will do the fighting they

kicked Mussolini out of the party for

the young agitator it's a turning point

he leaves his position as editor of

Avanti the Italian socialist paper and

he founds what will be the fascist

newspaper he'll Popolo d'Italia

bankrolled by wealthy industrialists who

favored joining the battle

Mussolini uses its pages to beat the

drum for war in 1915 Italy enters the

Great War on the side of Britain France

and Russia. Now Mussolini must do more

than write about war he's drafted and

joins the fight himself on the

battlefield he witnesses the power of

nationalism and learns how it can

motivate men into action if it can lead

men to storm a machine-gun nest he

reasons it can power a revolution I

think he realizes that the power of

nationalism is something that is a

massive building block for a political

party in February 1917 Mussolini is

wounded and returns to Milan

there he begins to create a new

political ideology that builds on the

nationalism he experienced in the

trenches he calls it fascism it's hard

to overestimate how revolutionary it was

it was a new political system. Fascism

takes certain things from the left like

revolution but marries them with a

nationalist and imperialist doctrine [A5]and

it makes an amalgam of something new

fascism celebrates military might

extreme devotion to country and the

superiority of the Italian people

it is also built around a promise to

restore Italy to the grandeur of ancient

Rome even the name fascism is an attempt

to link the movement with Italy's

glorious past the name comes from fasces

the Latin word for the bundle of rods

that symbolized Authority and power in

the age of Caesar he played on the idea

that he was gonna make Italy great again

that Italy really since the time of the

Roman Empire had been beaten up in the

international sphere he talked about

things like Italians are seen by the

world as spaghetti eaters and mandolin

players Italians are gonna be warriors

and he was gonna create the fascist new

man

[Music]

at the age of 35 the rebel has finally

found his cause

through speeches through his newspaper

mussolini spreads the new ideology his

ideas find fertile ground among his

fellow soldiers so they come home from

the war with this memory of great

violence they have shell-shocked or what

we would today call PTSD Mussolini

brings together all these discontents in

Milan and then throughout the north he

gathers a core group of true believers

they called themselves black shirts they

modeled their uniform on that of the

Arditi the elite italian brigade of the

first world war

mussolini hosts a meeting of futurists

and war veterans on the 23rd of march

it's a meeting of kind of strange

characters 50 of whom decide that

they're going to form the first fascist

movement

less than a month later they send a

message to Italy's socialists

a fascist squad demolishes the offices

of Avanti the newspaper Mussolini once

led four people are killed

if you needed one word to define fascism

in its early years violence a kind of

tactical violence is really at the core

Mussolini has a gang but he wants an

army to build one he uses an essential

tool of dictatorship one of the

important tools for any dictatorship is

to create an enemy they need to have

some sort of enemy that they can use as

a scapegoat as a unifying force to

galvanize the public and the elites

behind their rule [A6]there's really no

better way to get a dictator in a

position where he will be unchallenged

than if people believe he's actually

protecting them protecting their country

from ruination at the hands of neighbors

internal enemies who they do not trust

[Music]

Mussolini did not have to look far to

find the ideal enemy two years earlier

in October 1917 Vladimir Lenin's

communist revolution created a political

earthquake that was felt around the

world

for many it was seen as the end of

capitalism the end of private property

the end of God communism terrified

people for the real changes it could

bring emancipation of workers

destruction of capital following the end

of the war inflation and unemployment

soar throughout Italy and communism 'aa

peel begins to spread there was a sense

of emergency after World War 1 in Italy

the Communist Party had just been

founded on the heels of the Russian

Revolution the Socialist Party was

mushrooming workers rights were leading

to occupations of the factories there

was a situation some called a civil war

in 1920 some two million Italian workers

participate in more than 2,000 strikes

factories are closed manufacturing stops

Italy's democratically elected

government seems powerless to stop the

chaos just eight years earlier all

Italian males were given the vote but

the experiment with democracy isn't

working there was almost a consensus in

Europe

that democracy was not necessarily the

best form of government democracy to son

was uninspiring it was fat old men

discussing things in Parliament and

never getting anything done compromise

and collaboration didn't seem to be the

way to respond to situations of crisis

Italy appears on the brink of revolution

and Mussolini claims the fascists are

the only ones who can stop it

one thing that strong men really know

how to do is become the prophets of doom

[A7]
and this is counterintuitive for

politicians

you wouldn't think someone would go up

in front of his people and say you're

all doomed like negative politics but

what strong men do and Mussolini was the

first to really specialized in doing

this he said everything is cracking

everything's going downhill but I will

reverse the degeneration and I am your

Savior
[A8]
Mussolini writes an appeal to the nation

calling on every soldier to join the

fight against the communists he takes

his message to the streets holding

rallies giving speeches Mussolini really

knew how to speak to a psychological

worry of communism he pathologized

communism he talked about the rats

coming from the east that brought a

contagion with them Mussolini's warnings

attract allies to the fascist cause

industrialists and landowners offer

financial support and fascism appeal to

them

fascism said we're gonna stand up for

you this is a revolutionary situation

your interests are threatened we're

gonna bring law and order

the ranks of Blackshirts well as more

men answer the call to stop the red wave

to make good on his promise to help end

the crisis

Mussolini turns to another tactic of the

dictator
most dictators use violence and force to

eliminate dissent from within the regime

and to threaten the opposition from

rising up against them however miss

alline used force and violence in a

completely different way the fascists

glorified the use of violence they were

very clear they were also going to use

violence to attain the goals of the

state no matter what the cost

soon the fascist mob is unleashed on the

Socialists they go into cities in towns

and they physically destroy union halls

they murder and beat up socialist

leaders squadron's violence was very

traumatizing because it was at a local

level people would have their homes

burned they would be assaulted in the

street as the strikes come to an end

mussolini claims that the fascists have

helped restore order[A9]

his next move marks a major shift in

strategy he helps create a fascist

political party and prepares to run in

the upcoming elections I think one of

the contradictions we see is that this

is a person of revolutionary temperament

from the start but who's willing to

compromise and work within the system

when he needs to May 15 1921 Mussolini

and a handful of fascists are elected to

Parliament

now fascism is more than an ideology it

is a political force but it's clear that

Mussolini has no intention of playing by

democracy's rules by and large fascist

hated democracy even if they accepted

they had to work with in some of its

strictures they saw liberalism as

old-fashioned and something that really

belonged to the 19th century the 20th

century was meant for men of action just

18 months after being elected Mussolini

and a core group of fascists hatch a

plan to undermine Italy's democracy from

within

once again they rely on the threat of

violence he believed that change can

only come through violent struggle not

through elections not through the pace

of normal societal cultural change

change had to come in a wrenching

violent way[A10] through insurrection October

1922 30,000 black shirts march on Rome

seizing key government offices and train

stations along the way mussolini demands

that King Victor Emmanuel name him Prime

Minister the key position in Parliament

while Italy is a democracy the king

still has the power to name the Prime

Minister if the King doesn't comply with

Mussolini's wishes he's told the fascist

horde will storm the capital and take

power but Mussolini is playing a

dangerous game

the king also commands the army and the

national police force with one order he

could crush Mussolini and his movement

but the king and his key ministers

hesitate they were fearful of civil war

they were fearful of anarchy and perhaps

a socialist uprising as well for two

days Rome braces for civil war

now march on Rome is very interesting as

an example of the psychological warfare

there were only 30,000 black shirts in a

nation of over 40 million with an army

and a police who were loyal to the king

Mussolini really posed himself as a man

of order a strong man who would be able

to tame this unruly country but in the

end the king buckles and offers

Mussolini the jackpot the office of

Prime Minister many people the king

included were not only afraid of the

left they were tired of all of the

upheaval in general and they thought

well our politics is so broken maybe

this man can fix it so there was a sense

of doing a deal with the devil really

the way that Mussolini actually got

power in 1922 is a cautionary tale for

the rest of the 20th century and today

many people supported him because they

thought they could contain him they

thought he was a hothead and they could

invite him into government even as Prime

Minister and then he would calm down and

this proved to be fatally wrong[A11]

just days after taking office

Mussolini addresses the government and

gives one of the most extreme speeches

in Italy's history and the first meeting

of the Chamber of Deputies that's the

16th of November 1922 speaking to the

elected representatives for the first

time mussolini makes his objective clear

obey me or be dissolved

some of the other fascist deputies start

turning up in military regalia start

bringing revolvers into the Chamber of

Deputies Mussolini's got the top job but

real power in the government goes to the

political party with the most seats the

fascists hold just a handful Mussolini

is determined to change that April 6

1924 election day fascist thugs are

posted outside polling stations

throughout the country

their instructions grab the first men to

exit the polling booth and beat him for

not voting for the fascists

it doesn't matter whom he did vote for

the beaten man will be a warning for

those waiting to vote through violence

intimidation and vote rigging the

fascists win 65% of the seats in

parliament the victory gives them a

clear majority and seemingly

overwhelming power but fierce opposition

in Parliament remains Giacomo Matteotti

a leading left-wing politician calls for

the election to be nullified he condemns

Mussolini and accuses him of corruption

and intimidation Mariotti was a brave

leader and he was somebody that had been

assaulted a number of times by the

fascists but he refused to give up and

he was the person who stood up and said

in 1924 that the six of April election

was invalid because of fascist fraud and

violence and that was something that

Mussolini took as a personal sleight he

refused to give in or be bought off and

I think that made him a threat to

Mussolini Matteotti knew that what he

was doing was very dangerous

many anti-fascists had been beaten up

and killed not at the level of Matteotti

but not EOT didn't care he was as brave

as they come

once again the problem will be solved

with violence

shortly after denouncing Mussolini

Mariotti is kidnapped by a group of

armed fascists he has never seen alive

again two months later his body is found

in a culvert outside Rome while there's

no proof

many believe that Mussolini is behind

the murder as he's gained more power

Mussolini has grown more brazen but this

time he may have gone too far January

1925 outrage over the murder of Giacomo

Matteotti is spreading the cessation of

Matteotti and the public outcry was the

biggest crisis he had ever faced even

veterans who had been with him since

1919 start turning in their party cards

mussolini must act quickly but instead

of denying his involvement in the

killing he does something extraordinary

mussolini declares i alone assume

political moral and historical

responsibility for all that has happened

[A12]
most politicians wouldn't want to be

associated so openly with a political

assassination but fascism is built on

violence who had come to power on

violence and it was time for Mussolini

to boast that he was above the law as

well to remove any doubt as to who's in

charge he adopts the name L du chí Latin

for leader in Parliament

Mussolini openly declares the beginning

of his dictatorship he moves to

undermine a cornerstone of any

democratic society an independent

judicial system[A13] he removes the two

judges leading the investigation into

the murder then in July of 1925 he

announces an amnesty for the men accused

of the crime Mario Dee's killers are

released

[Music]

over the next two years Mussolini

systematically guts

Italy's remaining democratic

institutions he tightens censorship of

the press banning any negative coverage

[A14]
fascist squads attacks stores that sell

dissenting papers even though some of

the mainstream press like the Corriere

della Sera

had hundreds of thousands in its

circulation they were no longer really

allowed to report the news they were

allowed to report on how great Mussolini

was to ferret out potential enemies

Mussolini oversees the creation of a

network of secret police fascist Italy

was a police state police had incredible

power to arrest and detain people to

send them into internal exile and that

included all political dissidents or

people who might seem to be political

dissidents[A15] people who told the wrong

kind of joke in the trattoria but

Mussolini doesn't rule through

intimidation alone to increase his

support he adopts several new policies

so in the wake of the Great Depression

the regime began a program of massive

public works Road building town building

public education they sent nurses into

the countryside to teach infant hygiene

to poor mothers

these policies help make him wildly

popular with many Italians[A16] 1929 just 10

years after the birth of his fascist

movement Mussolini is in almost complete

control of Italy now to ensure the

devotion of the next generation of

Italians he uses another tactic

dictatorships often use indoctrination

to create unwavering devotion to the

leader and justify the harshness of the

regime[A17] you see that dictatorships very

early on would start to indoctrinate the

public it would happen during people's

impressionable years when people were

most likely to absorb this kind of

information and internalize it and

really believe it it was about

convincing people that there was no

other way there was no alternative that

this was the only type of rule that

could satisfy the needs of the nation in

the school's old textbooks are replaced

with pro-fascist versions

even the cover of an exercise book is an

opportunity to promote his rule

Mussolini proclaims at every hour of

every day I can tell you on which page

of which book each school child in Italy

is studying mostly played an intimate

role in crafting fascism's message not

only because he was a journalist but

because he understood the mechanisms of

mass and doctrine ation his slogans that

he came up with for every occasion

circulated not only in textbooks they

were carved into buildings they were

even on shirts they were sometimes in

furniture they were everywhere along

with his own image there was actually

something called the fascist 10

commandments that by the mid 30

schoolchildren and even college students

had to memorize and one of the fascist

Ten Commandments was Mussolini is always

right
[A18]
Caro senior Alec was born in 1925 the

only Italy he knew was Mussolini's Italy

un Tambor aged amento contigo Chianti

dobut videre to tulip urato del estado

para toda functionally Todaro stato air

organized Adolphus is mo / Sarah Savita

rota - to cuanto la manifestation and

Candela Pecola wranglin digital our

staff

[Music]

making young people committed for an

even fanatical fascist was at the core

of fascist ideology the cult of youth

was something central to fascism to

further tighten his hold over the public

Mussolini will pioneer another essential

tactic of dictatorship

dictators like to build personality

cults because it enables them to rule

without always having to resort to force

it enables them to mesmerize the public

to ensure that the public adores them

and to prevent threats from opponents

[A19]
Mussolini styles himself not merely as a

man of the people but as the one and

only leader of the nation to tea comfy

laboratory jacket or a pillow but I

totally grandi the way in which

Mussolini shaped his own image

cultivated foreigners to see him is

really one of the great Caesars in the

modern era was core to the way that

Mussolini saw himself but also the way

in which he represented the new Italy

to strengthen his bond with the nation

Mussolini perfects the art of connecting

with the crowd

[Applause]

[Applause]

[Music]

Mussolini could be a very powerful

speaker bombastic chest stuck out

shouting to crowds of this idea of

speaking to thousands upon thousands of

people of these oceanic assemblies that

was something that Mussolini had

perfected realizing he cannot be in

front of every Italian visually he finds

a revolutionary means to connect with

the entire Italian public radio so under

Mussolini the radio became one of the

primary sources of propaganda and so

people would gather together to listen

to the duche listening to the radio

together becomes a kind of cohesive

moment of social interaction just like

going to the movies

[Music]

Mussolini's actions quickly find

admirers outside Italy as well one in

particular has taken keen notice of his

meteoric rise to power January 30th 1933

Adolf Hitler takes control of Germany's

democratically elected government he

does it by using many of the same

tactics pioneered by Mussolini Hitler's

private army of brown shirts the mass

rallies even the Nazi salute all can be

traced back to Mussolini we heard for

years that Hitler taught Mussolini

everything he knew in fact it's the

opposite Hitler came to power after

Mussolini had already been there for 11

years people like Hitler were hugely

influenced by him so the march on Rome

is something that Hitler sees as a

gesture to copy from Mussolini's

playbook

but despite his best efforts by the

mid-1930s Mussolini is facing problems

that propaganda and indoctrination can't

solve the economy is struggling

unemployment is growing and discontent

is starting to spread to help regain

control
[A20]
Mussolini turns to another key tactic

[Music]

dictators often want to go to war

because it's a distraction it's a way of

uniting everybody under some sort of

nationalist banner it's a way of

distracting from just terrible policies

or from poor performance it's a way of

preventing the opposition from ever

challenging the dictatorship because to

do so they be viewed as being disloyal[A21]

Mussolini was so keen to go to war

because he wanted to unite the public

under one banner under one nationalist

agenda

he tells his people that the time to

fulfill the central promise of fascism

has come it is time to build an empire

but in 1935 that isn't easy over the

last 100 years Western powers have

colonized most of the developing world

now only a handful of independent

nations are left one is Ethiopia a

nation Italy had tried to conquer at the

turn of the last century

the Ethiopia question is a difficult one

he's certainly trying to create an

empire but remember that Ethiopia only

forty years before had defeated the

Italian Army in Ottawa in 1896 so some

of this was about reclaiming what he

perceived to be lost honor in Italy in

[Music]

Radiology's a Yanni

so no increase the momento the quality

religiosity to say Talia

Elif Yugi can take

[Applause]

nearly half a million Italian soldiers

are dispatched to Africa

on October 3 1935 Italian forces invade

Ethiopia

although hopelessly outgunned the

Ethiopians put up a fierce resistance

anticipating a quick military victory

Mussolini instead has his nose bloody I

think there was a fantasy when Mussolini

began the war that it would be a quick

short war and it wasn't so they turned

to a tactic of total war once they met

resistance they turned to chemical

weapons which had been banned after the

first world war

[Music]

mussolini orders his generals to burn

ethiopian villages and use poison gas on

civilians more than 300 tons of deadly

mustard gas is deployed against civilian

targets we're talking about air attacks

against Red Cross trucks poison gas

really breaking all manner of Geneva

Conventions while the international

community condemns his methods it does

nothing to stop the carnage may 5 1936

after seven months of bitter fighting

mussolini declares victory in the name

of fascism he proudly announces the

birth of a new roman empire

The Dictator gets his empire but the

cost is high more than 1,000 Italian

soldiers are killed or wounded and the

fighting claims the lives of more than

400,000 Ethiopians while Mussolini's

invasion is denounced by the world it is

applauded by Adolf Hitler emboldened by

Mussolini's brazen act and the fact that

the Western democracies did nothing to

stop it

Hitler launches his own bid to forge an

empire March 13 1938 Hitler's forces

annex nearby Austria followed by

Czechoslovakia just 12 months later

then on September 1 1939 Adolf Hitler

invades Poland triggering World War two

it is a mood that will have Titanic

consequences for Mussolini and the

entire world

Mussolini really believes that the Nazis

aren't gonna be on the winning side and

that there is gonna be a Nazi fascist

new order in Europe and he sees how

quickly the German blitzkrieg is working

mussolini sees opportunity he's long

dreamed of making italy the supreme

power in the mediterranean and the war

gives him a chance to make it a reality

but as generals warned Mussolini that

his army is in no shape for war the

Ethiopian campaign gutted the Treasury

and many soldiers now lacked proper

uniforms let alone modern weapons so

there are concerns in the fascist

hierarchy about the preparation of the

time military there are people in the

fascist hierarchy who don't want to

fight the war on the side of the Nazis

if there's a real split

fellow that you get a journey defending

a Fitzpatrick Napa

[Music]

[Music]

June 1940 Mussolini declares war on

Britain and France intent on controlling

the Mediterranean he launches a

two-front war his troops swarm into

Egypt to seize the Suez Canal

then they strike at Greece but the Greek

army pushes back and soon has the

Italians on the defensive as his

generals predicted Italy is woefully

unprepared for battle against fully

equipped adversaries more than a hundred

and fifty thousand Italians are killed

or wounded in the fighting and it's even

worse in North Africa in October 1942

the Italian forces are all but wiped out

they keep getting defeated in the war

they're defeated in Greece that defeated

in North Africa and so the military

might of Italy is seen very quickly to

be a straw man

[Music]

but the worst is still to come July 10

1943 after pushing Hitler and Mussolini

x' forces out of North Africa the Allies

launch an invasion of Italy 150,000

Allied troops stormed the island of

Sicily tired of Mussolini and his Wars

many of his own people welcomed the

invaders as liberators hell do che all

but vanishes from the public eye

Mussolini who was omnipresent for all

these decades he disappears from public

life he doesn't make his maybe radio

addresses he's not seen in public

perhaps it's not safe for him to come

out anymore

furious with his bungling of the war

top-ranking military officials and

fascists meet with the king to plan the

ill do Chi's downfall there was a

realization that Italy was lost that

Italy's power wasn't anywhere near what

the propaganda said it was and I think

that once the fascist Council of

Deputies realized that the war was

imminently reaching Italian Shores

then it was all over for Mussolini

unaware of the planned coup Mussolini is

invited to meet with the fascist Grand

Council his top ranking advisors

[Music]

they take a vote on whether muesli

should continue to rule whistling he

loses the vote I think it was absolutely

shot

I think he couldn't have imagined that

without the support of the military he

is powerless to stop the plot the elites

turned on Mussolini because he was

running the country into the ground the

war effort was going really really

poorly and he was making mistake after

mistake after mistake the king has him

put under house arrest and then sent to

a military hospital in Gran Sasso

Mussolini is kept under guard high atop

a mountain but he is not utterly

abandoned he has one Ally left and he's

a big one on September 9 1943 Hitler

learns that the Allies have launched an

invasion of the Italian mainland

he sends several divisions of soldiers

into Italy to guard the southern

approaches to Germany

then Hitler launches one of the most

daring rescues of the war he sends an

elite squad of commandos to free

Mussolini from a mountaintop prison

after landing their gliders they

surprise Mussolini's captors and rescue

him without firing a shot after

Mussolini's rescued by these SS troops

he arrives at Hitler's headquarters and

the first thing he says allegedly is I'm

here to receive my orders and I think

that that very clearly delineates the

relationship the change relationship

between Hitler and Mussolini the pupil

was no longer the tutor and Mussolini

had no cards to play Hitler installs

Mussolini as the leader of the large

swath of territory now under German

control the once great dictator is now

Hitler's puppet and as the Allies

continue to push north

Mussolini can only make a pretence of

authority

but Mussolini's time as Hitler's pawn is

short-lived

as the Allies advanced from the south

an anti-fascist partisans take control

of villages to the north his puppet

state collapses Mussolini and Clara

Petacci his mistress for the last ten

years must flee or be captured this was

a broken man he thinks about going to

Switzerland he thinks about giving

himself up either to the Allies or the

partisans ultimately they decide on

trying to kind of sneak into Austria

April 28 1945 with the German army now

in retreat Mussolini and Petacchi make a

desperate run for the Austrian border

their truck is stopped near Lake Como

although he is disguised as a soldier

the most familiar face in Italy does not

go unnoticed ultimately caught by a

group of partisans who recognizes

Mussolini in an overcoat and Austrian

military uniform the partisans set up an

impromptu court and after finding

Mussolini guilty of treason they condemn

him to death by firing squad

Mussolini's corpse is then brought to

Milan and placed in front of a jeering

mob the body of Mussolini Clara Petacci

and a number of the other leaders the

real extremists the real hardcore are

hung up in a Milanese petrol station for

the mob to laugh at and they hung him

upside down because in ancient Rome

traitors were hung upside down

his body was left there for a number of

days until some American GIs showed up

in a jeep and cut the bodies down almost

25 years after it began Mussolini's

fascist revolution has reached its

bloody conclusion in the aftermath of

the war the Italian people turned their

back on his ideology of violence and

create a democratic republic it is now

in its seventh decade but Mussolini has

not been forgotten almost seventy years

after his downfall his home village of

per doppio is a destination for

neo-fascist pilgrims there are people in

Italy who really look back on the

fascist period fondly as a time of law

and order as a time of national grandeur

as a time when things worked for many

Italians it was a period of Italian

greatness in which Italy had respect in

the world
[A22]
[Music]

the fascism has come back into having an

attraction for people because in some

ways we're going through a moment that

is not dissimilar to post-world War one

there's a lot of economic anxiety

there's worries above all about

demographic shifts and their worries

about mobile populations in this case

immigrants are the new enemy

and people are starting to remember the

way that Mussolini tried to make Italy

great again forgetting all the horrors

that had befallen Italy both as a result

of his rule and immediately thereafter

[Music]

we forget with Selena at our peril today

because many of the signs and symptoms

of fascism are back the desire for a

strong man the rising racism the need

for scapegoats the disaffection with

traditional forms of government all of

this is coming back and we need to

remember the lesson of the strong man

which is tyranny and hatred

next time on the dictators playbook

Noriega is a dictator Noriega is a drug

trafficker Noriega is repressing

freedoms a gangster in a military

uniform Noriega was a double agent and

he was exchanging information between

the US intelligence the Cuban

intelligence he played a very

high-stakes game he defied the US

government in Panama we will not let

American spies

[Applause]

[Music]

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[Music]

[A1]The architect of fascism

[A2]Undermining judges, indoctrinating children, destruction of democracy, turned
himself into a modern Caesar.
[A3]Dictators learn from each other, they are all different but many use the same
tactics:
terror, propaganda, control of the elites, cult of personality, use of violence
[A4]Italy was a feudal society with limited democracy
[A5]Fascism: revolution married with nationalist and imperialist doctrine

celebrates military might extreme devotion to country and the superiority of the
Italian people, the grandeur of Ancient Rome- fasces means bundle of rods
symbolizes authority and power in the time of Caesar.
[A6]one of the important tools for any dictatorship is to create an enemy. They
need to have some sort of enemy that they can use as a scapegoat as a unifying
force to galvanize the public and the elites behind their rule.
[A7]strong men really know how to do is become the prophets of doom

[A8]everything's going downhill but I will reverse the degeneration and I am your
Savior

[A9]Violence restores order

[A10]threat of violence he believed that change can only come through violent
struggle not through elections not through the pace of normal societal cultural
change change had to come in a wrenching violent way
[A11]1922 is a cautionary tale for the rest of the 20th century and today many
people supported him because they thought they could contain him they thought he
was a hothead and they could invite him into government even as Prime Minister and
then he would calm down and this proved to be fatally wrong
[A12]Instead of denying his involvement in the killing he does something
extraordinary mussolini declares i alone assume political moral and historical
responsibility for all that has happened

Sounds familiar, right?

boast that he was above the law as well to remove any doubt as to who's in charge

[A13]undermine a cornerstone of any democratic society an independent judicial

system[A13]
[A14]he tightens censorship of the press banning any negative coverage

[A15]creation of a network of secret police. Fascist Italy was a police state.

Police had incredible power to arrest and detain people to send them into internal
exile and that included all political dissidents or people who might seem to be
political dissidents
[A16]a program of massive public works Road building town building public education
they sent nurses into the countryside to teach infant hygiene to poor mothers these
policies help make him wildly popular with many Italians
[A17]indoctrination to create unwavering devotion to the
leader and justify the harshness of the regime

convincing people that there was no

other way there was no alternative that this was the only type of rule that could
satisfy the needs of the nation
[A18]one of the fascist
Ten Commandments was Mussolini is always right

[A19]dictators like to build personality cults because it enables them to rule

without always having to resort to force it enables them to mesmerize the public to
ensure that the public adores them and to prevent threats from opponents

man of the people but as the one and only leader of the nation

[A20]mid-1930s Mussolini is facing problems that propaganda and indoctrination

can't solve the economy is struggling unemployment is growing and discontent is
starting to spread

[A21]dictators often want to go to war because it's a distraction it's a way of

uniting everybody under some sort of nationalist banner it's a way of distracting
from just terrible policies or from poor performance it's a way of preventing the
opposition from ever challenging the dictatorship because to do so they be viewed
as being disloyal
[A22]look back on the fascist period fondly as a time of law and order as a time of
national grandeur as a time when things worked for many Italians it was a period of
Italian greatness in which Italy had respect in the world