Amusingly, Albert Weisbord claims that part of the improvement in train schedules was due to the stoppage of socialist protesters who would often stop trains, similar to modern-day protesters who block traffic.
Here are the relevant paragraphs from his book, 'The Conquest of Power':
"After the war, new Fasci were organized, this time ostensibly for the purpose of reaffirming the advisability of Italy's entrance into the war and of defending the interests of the demobilized soldier. At this time, so unpopular were all memories of the War that Italians did not hesitate to rip off the uniforms of soldiers or of officers whom they met and to stamp the pieces into the ground. "Sometimes an express train waited hours in a country station until a general or a policeman decided to get off, and go on his way by some other means." (*8) Highly significant in this anecdote is the cowardice of the socialists in being willing to wait, to hold up a whole train for hours to compel the officer to leave, rather than to throw him off bodily, without such waste of time. On a larger scale, precisely this policy caused the defeat of the entire socialist movement and enabled the fascist forces to grow bolder in their attacks. All the socialists could do was to confuse railway time tables; it was one of Mussolini's greatest boasts that he restored the trains to schedule."
If you want to be truly edgy, you could assess the Nazis' impact on crime in Germany. Germans living under Hitler often praised his crime-fighting record, well into the post-war period.
Historians are quick to emphasise that the Nazi regime itself was criminal and murderous (both true, and it truly did make a mockery of the law) to the extent that there is doubt over the legitimacy of any actions by the Nazi justice system, including the moral legitimacy of judges, police officers etc. who continued their jobs after the war.
But given that a few conspicuous suspects commit most crimes, it does not seem implausible to me that there was true success in smashing the organized crime rings that had become notorious during the Weimar Republic, and petty crime would be far easier to deal with.
Mussolini took a country in a state of chaos - well on its way to falling apart like Spain did in the 1930s - and whipped it into shape. The trains were just one example of that.
This is because 'Fascism', as the prosopographical techniques of Kevin MacDonald tell us, was actually just a movement cooked up to advance Jewish Group Interests. The goal was to have a government that would arrest communists and trade unionists, but not be in hock to the Catholic Church. There was a great deal of outright nonsense involved, but it didn't matter because Mussolini ignored that in practice and got on with doing cool stuff. Unfortunately, Fascism was such a success it inspired gentile copycat movements around Europe who weren't in on the joke and actually thought that nations had spirits and war was purifying and similar retardation. 😔
I see you just wrote to me in another comment (was it deleted?) that Nazism was good for "100% of the actual Germans", so let me make it clear that I am no Nazi apologist and regard defending that regime as equally stupid and evil.
What a surprise that the Nazis got themselves into a world war which they wanted all along! Should Poles not have resisted and accepted their status as racial inferiors, who could be displaced and murdered at will? And other countries? Should have ignored German aggression long after Hitler had exhausted all diplomatic goodwill? The US was presumably obliged to ignore the Nazi declaration of war out of charity, and the Soviet Union had no business of actually fighting back against a regime that wanted to exterminate millions of Slavs alongside the Jews of Europe. (It's quite an achievement to be the greater evil when fighting the Soviet Union.)
While in power, the Nazis managed to ruin Germany's reputation as a cultured, civilised country forever. Every German had to to debase himself, professing Nazi creeds in Nazi organizations. The intellectual climate was so stifling that most of Germany's great minds had left before the war, and any dissenters were chased out of their jobs or sent to concentration camps. Christianity was to be crushed following final victory. The economy owed much to overspending (future conquests were supposed to balance the sheets) and outright plunder once the war had started. There was no interest in trade and cooperation with other countries anyway. And after getting 20% of German men killed and most cities bombed into rubble, Hitler declared in his final days that Germans had turned out to be an inferior race who deserved no future. One has to be obscenely racist and nationalist to like any of this.
"The only shortcoming of Nazism you can seem to bring up is that they lost their war."
Go back and read his post again, then, s-l-o-w-l-y.
Then ask yourself: if Hitler had won, and gotten away with slaughtering millions of Slavs and Poles and Jews, would varactyl be reconciled to Naziism?
If not, then you've misread his post.
The foundational idea of the EU was to knit Germany and France together in economic and resource cooperation. It was the opposite of Hitler's vision. And of course the Nazis did more to discredit anticommunism than anyone who ever lived.
"The only problem with the movement/ideology - like with Napoleon - was that it was so successful it initiated jealousy in foreign powers. Doesn’t mean it was ineffective."
The biggest problem with the movement/ideology was that it was a cesspool of insane hatred.
We'll never really know if National Socialism was successful absent all the crazy militarism because the crazy militarism started right away. I suspect it wouldn't have been very successful in the medium term because a central policy was chasing the most talented section of the population away, but it's moot.
Even Robert Mugabe's land reforms created an 'economic boom' for a few years. It's not hard to steal a bunch of capital and spend it. You have to think a bit longer term, which is hard for counter-semites, hency why you lose everything all the time and everyone hates you.
I don't think Jews are an integral part of any nation becoming successful. As a rule, nations that make use of Jews do better than those that listen to anti-semites. That's what history shows; you're just butthurt about it because if only England had supported Hitler he would have won or something.
One thing I never understood about Mussolini. When WWII came he’d been in power almost 20 years. But weapons for the Italian army were lacking in both quantity and quality. What had he been doing for two decades.
Thanks, that sounds pretty good, although "planned an exposition" does not impress. But Italian industrial capacity remained limited after two decades of his rule. Basically, Italy manufactured obsolete weapons slowly and inefficiently.
He greatly overestimated Italy's military prowess. He dreamed of recreating a Mediterranean empire after the fashion of ancient Rome, but it turned out Italy struggled to defeat even Ethiopia (and later Greece, where Germany bailed him out). Amazingly, he intended to attack Britain in 1932, but his admirals managed to talk him out of it. A year later, he considered a surprise attack on France, although this effort too was abandoned after he learnt that the French has broken Italian codes.
WWII started only 5 months after the end of the Spanish Civil War in which Italy was heavily involved sending italian naval ships, airplanes and ground forces in the conflict plus providing supplies to Franco.
From wiki : Italy provided the Nationalists with 660 planes, 150 tanks, 800 artillery pieces, 10,000 machine guns, and 240,000 rifles. The Italian CTV would, at its peak, supply the Nationalists with 70,000 men and played a decisive role in the conflict
1) Italy was never good militarily, just look at WW1.
2) like the Soviets, the Italians had invested a lot too early for ww2. You had a lot of obsolete stuff from the early to mid 30s when the war broke out.
3) the Italians spent a lot on the Spanish civil war. Far more than the Germans. This ties in with #2.
4) the Italian navy was battleship based, which was a bad call going into ww2.
In short Mussolini knew he couldn’t fight a war in 1940 but when the Germans beat France he said “I only need a few thousand dead so I can sit at the negotiating table as a man who has fought”. Unfortunately for him the British didn’t negotiate.
Italy invaded these countries after Hitler formed a pact with the Bolsheviks to rape Europe (classic counter-Semite behaviour). This isn't a counter-argument at all to the claim that all the militarism in Italian fascism was nonsense whipped up to appeal to low IQ supporters and then everything got out of hand when copycat movements started taking it too seriously.
But maybe Mussolini himself was also high on his own supply. Could be. That's an inherent problem in using gentile frontmen for these kinds of projects.
Fair enough on Albania I'll read up on it. You didn't include Ethiopia in your original list. Obviously that was an example of finding some weak country to do performative militarism on. Not ideal, but not the end of the world either.
As to rest, no-one cares. National Socialism caused the physical destruction of 10s of millions of gentiles taking down everyone who went along with it. America took the Jews Germany was better off without and conquered the world. With Jews, you win, with you, you lose.
According to Paul Johnson, the wife of the British Ambassador to Italy was waiting along with Mussolini for a late train. When it arrived and Mussolini was boarding according to her, he said, "And that's another thing, I want the trains to run on time. The people of Italy deserve working trains".
Amusingly, Albert Weisbord claims that part of the improvement in train schedules was due to the stoppage of socialist protesters who would often stop trains, similar to modern-day protesters who block traffic.
Here are the relevant paragraphs from his book, 'The Conquest of Power':
"After the war, new Fasci were organized, this time ostensibly for the purpose of reaffirming the advisability of Italy's entrance into the war and of defending the interests of the demobilized soldier. At this time, so unpopular were all memories of the War that Italians did not hesitate to rip off the uniforms of soldiers or of officers whom they met and to stamp the pieces into the ground. "Sometimes an express train waited hours in a country station until a general or a policeman decided to get off, and go on his way by some other means." (*8) Highly significant in this anecdote is the cowardice of the socialists in being willing to wait, to hold up a whole train for hours to compel the officer to leave, rather than to throw him off bodily, without such waste of time. On a larger scale, precisely this policy caused the defeat of the entire socialist movement and enabled the fascist forces to grow bolder in their attacks. All the socialists could do was to confuse railway time tables; it was one of Mussolini's greatest boasts that he restored the trains to schedule."
If you want to be truly edgy, you could assess the Nazis' impact on crime in Germany. Germans living under Hitler often praised his crime-fighting record, well into the post-war period.
Historians are quick to emphasise that the Nazi regime itself was criminal and murderous (both true, and it truly did make a mockery of the law) to the extent that there is doubt over the legitimacy of any actions by the Nazi justice system, including the moral legitimacy of judges, police officers etc. who continued their jobs after the war.
But given that a few conspicuous suspects commit most crimes, it does not seem implausible to me that there was true success in smashing the organized crime rings that had become notorious during the Weimar Republic, and petty crime would be far easier to deal with.
Mussolini took a country in a state of chaos - well on its way to falling apart like Spain did in the 1930s - and whipped it into shape. The trains were just one example of that.
This is because 'Fascism', as the prosopographical techniques of Kevin MacDonald tell us, was actually just a movement cooked up to advance Jewish Group Interests. The goal was to have a government that would arrest communists and trade unionists, but not be in hock to the Catholic Church. There was a great deal of outright nonsense involved, but it didn't matter because Mussolini ignored that in practice and got on with doing cool stuff. Unfortunately, Fascism was such a success it inspired gentile copycat movements around Europe who weren't in on the joke and actually thought that nations had spirits and war was purifying and similar retardation. 😔
I see you just wrote to me in another comment (was it deleted?) that Nazism was good for "100% of the actual Germans", so let me make it clear that I am no Nazi apologist and regard defending that regime as equally stupid and evil.
What a surprise that the Nazis got themselves into a world war which they wanted all along! Should Poles not have resisted and accepted their status as racial inferiors, who could be displaced and murdered at will? And other countries? Should have ignored German aggression long after Hitler had exhausted all diplomatic goodwill? The US was presumably obliged to ignore the Nazi declaration of war out of charity, and the Soviet Union had no business of actually fighting back against a regime that wanted to exterminate millions of Slavs alongside the Jews of Europe. (It's quite an achievement to be the greater evil when fighting the Soviet Union.)
While in power, the Nazis managed to ruin Germany's reputation as a cultured, civilised country forever. Every German had to to debase himself, professing Nazi creeds in Nazi organizations. The intellectual climate was so stifling that most of Germany's great minds had left before the war, and any dissenters were chased out of their jobs or sent to concentration camps. Christianity was to be crushed following final victory. The economy owed much to overspending (future conquests were supposed to balance the sheets) and outright plunder once the war had started. There was no interest in trade and cooperation with other countries anyway. And after getting 20% of German men killed and most cities bombed into rubble, Hitler declared in his final days that Germans had turned out to be an inferior race who deserved no future. One has to be obscenely racist and nationalist to like any of this.
"The only shortcoming of Nazism you can seem to bring up is that they lost their war."
Go back and read his post again, then, s-l-o-w-l-y.
Then ask yourself: if Hitler had won, and gotten away with slaughtering millions of Slavs and Poles and Jews, would varactyl be reconciled to Naziism?
If not, then you've misread his post.
The foundational idea of the EU was to knit Germany and France together in economic and resource cooperation. It was the opposite of Hitler's vision. And of course the Nazis did more to discredit anticommunism than anyone who ever lived.
"The only problem with the movement/ideology - like with Napoleon - was that it was so successful it initiated jealousy in foreign powers. Doesn’t mean it was ineffective."
The biggest problem with the movement/ideology was that it was a cesspool of insane hatred.
We'll never really know if National Socialism was successful absent all the crazy militarism because the crazy militarism started right away. I suspect it wouldn't have been very successful in the medium term because a central policy was chasing the most talented section of the population away, but it's moot.
Even Robert Mugabe's land reforms created an 'economic boom' for a few years. It's not hard to steal a bunch of capital and spend it. You have to think a bit longer term, which is hard for counter-semites, hency why you lose everything all the time and everyone hates you.
I don't think Jews are an integral part of any nation becoming successful. As a rule, nations that make use of Jews do better than those that listen to anti-semites. That's what history shows; you're just butthurt about it because if only England had supported Hitler he would have won or something.
Bro, you lost.
One thing I never understood about Mussolini. When WWII came he’d been in power almost 20 years. But weapons for the Italian army were lacking in both quantity and quality. What had he been doing for two decades.
I'm no expert, but GPT4 tells me:
>Tell me the top 10 things that Mussolini built or worked on during his pre-WW2 reign, as a list
Autostrada: Developed Italy’s first highway system, the Autostrada dei Laghi, in 1924.
EUR District: Planned the Esposizione Universale Roma for the 1942 World's Fair (though it was never completed due to the war).
Pontine Marshes: Drained and reclaimed the Pontine Marshes to create arable land and combat malaria.
Via della Conciliazione: Constructed the grand avenue connecting Rome to Vatican City.
Railways: Expanded and modernized Italy’s railway network.
New Towns: Built new towns like Littoria (now Latina) and Sabaudia as part of rural development.
Milan Central Station: Completed the large and iconic Milan Central Station.
Public Housing: Developed extensive public housing projects to alleviate urban overcrowding.
Agricultural Reforms: Implemented land reforms to increase agricultural production.
Dopolavoro: Established the National Recreational Club (Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro) to provide leisure activities for workers.
Looks like he was doing rather sensible things as a dictator until he foolishly entered the war.
Our silicon overlord missed Italian involvement in the Spanish Civil War and the invasion of Ethiopia which both were expansive.
Thanks, that sounds pretty good, although "planned an exposition" does not impress. But Italian industrial capacity remained limited after two decades of his rule. Basically, Italy manufactured obsolete weapons slowly and inefficiently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kcx8pztu_Y&t=424s
He greatly overestimated Italy's military prowess. He dreamed of recreating a Mediterranean empire after the fashion of ancient Rome, but it turned out Italy struggled to defeat even Ethiopia (and later Greece, where Germany bailed him out). Amazingly, he intended to attack Britain in 1932, but his admirals managed to talk him out of it. A year later, he considered a surprise attack on France, although this effort too was abandoned after he learnt that the French has broken Italian codes.
WWII started only 5 months after the end of the Spanish Civil War in which Italy was heavily involved sending italian naval ships, airplanes and ground forces in the conflict plus providing supplies to Franco.
From wiki : Italy provided the Nationalists with 660 planes, 150 tanks, 800 artillery pieces, 10,000 machine guns, and 240,000 rifles. The Italian CTV would, at its peak, supply the Nationalists with 70,000 men and played a decisive role in the conflict
Yes, but there's also just a fundamental lack of industrial capacity. See below (pretty short).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kcx8pztu_Y&t=424s
1) Italy was never good militarily, just look at WW1.
2) like the Soviets, the Italians had invested a lot too early for ww2. You had a lot of obsolete stuff from the early to mid 30s when the war broke out.
3) the Italians spent a lot on the Spanish civil war. Far more than the Germans. This ties in with #2.
4) the Italian navy was battleship based, which was a bad call going into ww2.
In short Mussolini knew he couldn’t fight a war in 1940 but when the Germans beat France he said “I only need a few thousand dead so I can sit at the negotiating table as a man who has fought”. Unfortunately for him the British didn’t negotiate.
As a nation state it’s only existed for 150 years.
Nazi-ism had to fall. Letting them get the resources of the east was not a good idea.
A harder line should have been taken with Stalin but FDR was half red.
All the militarism stuff was fake and for the plebs. How was Mussolini supposed to know that Hitler took it seriously?
Italy invaded these countries after Hitler formed a pact with the Bolsheviks to rape Europe (classic counter-Semite behaviour). This isn't a counter-argument at all to the claim that all the militarism in Italian fascism was nonsense whipped up to appeal to low IQ supporters and then everything got out of hand when copycat movements started taking it too seriously.
But maybe Mussolini himself was also high on his own supply. Could be. That's an inherent problem in using gentile frontmen for these kinds of projects.
Fair enough on Albania I'll read up on it. You didn't include Ethiopia in your original list. Obviously that was an example of finding some weak country to do performative militarism on. Not ideal, but not the end of the world either.
As to rest, no-one cares. National Socialism caused the physical destruction of 10s of millions of gentiles taking down everyone who went along with it. America took the Jews Germany was better off without and conquered the world. With Jews, you win, with you, you lose.
Nobody ever accused Democrats of making anything run on time. So their anti-fascist cred is confirmed.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-21/high-speed-rail
Truly, the inability of modern western countries to build anything is an embarrassment.
According to Paul Johnson, the wife of the British Ambassador to Italy was waiting along with Mussolini for a late train. When it arrived and Mussolini was boarding according to her, he said, "And that's another thing, I want the trains to run on time. The people of Italy deserve working trains".