Political subversives III: Fascists and anti-fascists
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The Anti-Fascist movement embraced diverse leftists, including Carlo Tresca, as noted above. Opposition to Mussolini from the left was reflected by activities of the Anti-Fascist Alliance of North America, which formed common ground for anarchists, socialists/syndicalists and communists to temporarily set aside their differences and unite against fascist oppression. Gone, at least temporarily, were the debates about proper philosophy of the left: the goal was to unite in order to defeat fascism.
As for fascism itself, its roots were in the nationalist fervor stoked by Italy’s late 19th and early 20th century imperialist ventures in Africa, which are reflected in several items in the collection. Fascism itself, with its radical nationalist agenda, came to prominence in the first quarter of 20th-century Europe, originating in Italy during World War I. Benito Mussolini founded the Fascist Party, a right-wing organization which launched a campaign of terrorism and intimidation against its leftist opponents, and forced the king in 1922 to name him the Prime Minister as a result of the fascists’ show of force in the March on Rome.
In America, active fascist supporters started two magazines that vied for primacy with Mussolini as instruments of the Fascist Party in America. Agostino de Biasi’s Il Carroccio, (The Chariot) was published from 1915 until 1935 - most years of the magazine are in the collection - with a circulation of about 10,000–12,000, long-lived initially but ultimately with a circulation of only about one-third of Domenico Trombetta’s far more militant Il Grido della Stirpe (The Cry of the Race), which became the largest circulation pro-fascist periodical at about 30,000 at its height in the mid-late 1920s, dropping to about 5,000 in the late 1930s as Italian Americans soured on Mussolini.
Mussolini also promoted teaching the Italian language to Italian American schoolchildren, reflected in several items in the collection.
Both fascist and therefore anti-fascist activities were not confined to New York, Chicago and other big cities. By the early 1920s, Fascist Party cells in the United States were present in Buffalo, Albany, Rochester and Syracuse.
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