What is Veeky Forums's opinion on Benito Mussolini?

I know you didn't. I was just making an observation.

>corrupt and ineffective
Literally the first and last Italian politician to actually get rid of mafia.

It's not that much of an achievement when the policies he enacted meant that the state practically became the new mafia in the South.

My grandparents grew up in the South and all I hear about was how he created jobs.

Children usually have little clue as to what's going on on a political level.

They weren't children. They were teens, and far more aware than teenagers now a days.

One was a teen. The other a child.

Apart from it being anecdotal evidence I find the idea that your teenage grandparents, who most probably were uneducated, would have much of a clue of what was happening in Italy outside of their towns or villages.

I too had grandparents who left Sicily in 1933 due to the lack of economic opportunity. In fact many Southerners left Italy at this time and in 1936, Mussolini had to enact an anti emigration law, tying the peasants to their land and prevent travel overseas.

my great or great great grandmother, who lived in near benevento in the south said the Mussolini did a lot of good, he gave her new shoes I guess

Unless your coming at from a libtardarian perspective where all government is organized crime, i'm sorry my man, but the idea the fascist Italy was the new mafia just isn't true. You disagree with their policies? Ideology? fine.

my grandmother said she was there when he got strung up and spat on his corpse

lol

One of my college teachers lived in the north and absolutely adored Il Duce. She came from money and had a large house, and the German army stayed there for a time.

She got all dreamy thinking about this "Handsome German Officer" who lived in the house with her family.

I suggest you read Caroline White's "A STUDY OF POLITICS IN TWO SOUTHERN ITALIAN COMUNI". In her contextual chapters she outlines how the Fascists had two differing policies in Italy. In the North land was redistributed amongst the workers because the fear that the peasants would rise up rather than the land owners was a much greater fear. In the South however, Mussolini fostered a close and exploitative relationship with the landed nobles. The nobles were much more organised than the northerners and the reality of parcel farming meant that southern farmers were less likely to unite than the North. What this meant was that the Fascists had a close deal with the landowners and would receive kickbacks by enacting new price ceilings on commonly grown produce in the South when the landowners came to buy the goods from the peasants. They simply bought, say, wheat at 140 liras (with full knowledge of the law change) and then sell it at 200 liras when the government would change the law.

Mussolini would often frequently use the squadristi to put down any sort of labour movement which started, at the landowners behest, and enacted tough restrictions on emigration and forced a near return to feudalism by enacting identity cards which forced workers to stay on their farms and a guild system which forced children to take the professions of their fathers.

Whilst the mafia was bad, I agree, Fascism wasn't much better for the average Southerner.

NOT a perfect man.
I'd say he was a deluded madman with good intentions, but a deluded madman nonetheless.
The Ethoipoian campaign was costly, not to mention downright vicious and criminal.
He was not a good strategist and waged far to many unnecessary wars for no reason at all.
Italy stayed the exact same under his rule with few improvements here and there, so it can't be said he made life better for everyone.

>and forced a near return to feudalism
What? Lol thanks to Mussolini my family had electricity in their small village. It was the depression era and people were poor but this statement is not close to being true.

>What?
I gave you reasons why I believe this and I have backing from academic sources confirming his policies.

>village
If you know anything about Southern Italy in the 20th Century you'd know the enormous difference between town dwellers and the cafoni (rural farmers).

All I hear from possibly Italian-American diaspora is "muh grandparents said this and that about Mussolini! They're nostalgia means his was great!". Not the best hill to die on.

TARQUINED.com

Mussolini modernized the country. Of course he would limit emigration when a war broke out. To imply that he in anyway sought a return to feudalism just isn't true and people alive today can attest to this. Sometimes academics are full shit and have agendas.

Good enough guy, he shouldn't have allied with H*tler tho

The shining example of either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

>Mussolini modernized the country.
In some parts, yes.
>Of course he would limit emigration when a war broke out.
The emigration restrictions were enacted in 1933 not 1940.

Monticelli, Giuseppe Lucrezio (Summer 1967). "Italian Emigration: Basic Characteristic and Trends with Special Reference to the Last Twenty Years".
>To imply that he in anyway sought a return to feudalism
I never implied it at all, but what I did say was that his policies caused a return to feudal-like existence amongst the rural peasants.
> Sometimes academics are full shit and have agendas.
When they don't agree with you, sure.

Mussolini literally fell asleep while Hitler sperged out to him.

*I never implied that he sought to

is what I meant to type. But his policies did cause a near return regardless of intention.

Quite good. Modernised ancient systems of government and brought very interesting qualities into them.

Was led down the garden path by Hitler, who he absolutely disliked. Essentially Mussolini was the perfect Fascist -- a completely centrist politician and system of government. He wasn't radical enough ultimately.

>amongst the rural peasants.
My grandparents came from a mountain town of a few thousand people in Calabria. they had small farms if anything. If this isn't "rural peasntry" idk what is. As This "caroline White" sounds like an americunt who doesn't know what she's talking about. I assure you from a material or social perspective Italy was not any more feudalistic then before Mussolini took over. This is simple chronology.

No, the rural peasantry in Southern Italy literally lived in small parcels of land, separated from each.

>dismisses sources because they sound American
Then you will forever remain ignorant due to your selective biases.

Before Mussolini's laws the peasants could freely travel and seek better economic opportunities for themselves ever since the destruction of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1861.

I'm not sure why you're being so stubborn about something you know little about.

Common Law
>Foundations of the right to freedom of movement laid out in 1225

Civil Law
>Indentured serfs tied to land in 1936

How can continiggers even compete?

>I'm not sure why you're being so stubborn about something you know little about.
I'll submit to being less knowledgeable than you on the issue. This being said, I know people who personally experienced life during that time plus any research I did and I personally don't think that that your perspective is an accurate analysis of the situation. You claim so many people were forced to this or that. if it's true it sounds to me a lot more like the Bolsheviks forcing people on collective farms and a lot less like enforced luddism. People were extremely poor during the 1930s. remember in every capacity people just did what they had to in order to survive.

Does this sound like a man who was restrictive of immigration? nydailynews.com/news/national/benito-mussolini-told-immigrants-america-great-article-1.2725269

>evola left Italy because Mussolini was too tame for him

idealistic idiot who fucked himself so hard his people had the noose waiting for him

>Then you will forever remain ignorant due to your selective biases.
>You should ignore your family's historical experiences because some academic said they were retarded and didn't know what was going on in their own lives.

This is why I've come to lose all respect for the field of history. It's meaningless masturbation that gets "revised" with every new generation according to fashions of the era.

>communists
>his people
>people at all in the first place

What field DO you respect where biased, second-hand anecdotal evidence is taken at face value as the total truth?

Make no mistake, Mussolini was an evil motherfucker, see Ethiopia. His crimes are often overlooked because of his alliance with 2 far eviler motherfuckers, though.

I don't know much about Mussolini as a person but he was a pretty inept leader that is for sure. Under his leadership, Italy got whooped and it was his only people who ended up taking him down.

>and it was his only people who ended up taking him down.
Dubious circumstances to say the least.

He wasn't a great guy, but he was /our guy/

He got hung up on a meat hook. I don't think it's possible to be more BTFO.

he was a weeb cliche with legs
>be on the far left in political terms
>be sharpshooter killing the soldiers invading your country
>something very bad happens to you and you become the monster you were originally trying to fight

literal edgemaster
also, he invented the whole thing and in the end got surpassed by his nazi pupil so powerlevels are also a thing here

all dictator but hitler were all shit tier
>want to have an empire so i can be part of the c00L kid's club
>needs to go all out to avoid getting wrecked by ethiopians with lances

and then there's franco, that literally lost the country to leaderless revolutionary brigades poorly trained and ill equipped

needless to say both needed to ask for their nazi moma's help in order to maintain their shitty ""empires""

overall, most if not all dictators at that point were the worst you could get... mostly thugs or simpletons that rose to power without ability or merit

I liked him.