Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables and Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Common Abbreviations in Text and Notes
- Introduction: The Fascist Archipelago
- 1 Squad Violence
- 2 Institutions of Fascist Violence
- 3 Breaking the Anti-Fascists, 1926-1934
- 4 The Archipelago
- 5 The Politics of Pardons
- 6 Everyday Political Crime
- 7 Ordinary Fascist Violence
- 8 The Politics of Everyday Life
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Ordinary Fascist Violence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables and Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Common Abbreviations in Text and Notes
- Introduction: The Fascist Archipelago
- 1 Squad Violence
- 2 Institutions of Fascist Violence
- 3 Breaking the Anti-Fascists, 1926-1934
- 4 The Archipelago
- 5 The Politics of Pardons
- 6 Everyday Political Crime
- 7 Ordinary Fascist Violence
- 8 The Politics of Everyday Life
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Another phenomenon that provoked the hostility of citizens to the regime was the thirst for overreacting, for excessive force that overcame all party hierarchs, from top to bottom. … Hierarchs big and small saw no other mode of affirming their authority than assuming and illegally exercising powers entrusted to the organs of the State, often reaching the point of invading the sphere of the personal liberty of citizens. It even reached the point that party authorities believed it was their right to intervene in conflicts of a personal nature.
Carmine Senise, Chief of Police (1940-1943)A disagreement with the head of the local fascio, even an apolitical one, is enough to legitimize a confino sentence. What counts is not the text of the written law, but the ability to apply it whenever one pleases.
Emilio Lussu, Lipari escapeeFederico Fellini's film Amarcord tells a nostalgic, semiautobiographical story about coming of age under Fascism in a seaside town resembling Rimini. Well into the film, a high-ranking Fascist, the province's federale, makes an official visit to the town. That night, as the festivities are winding down, the Socialist hymn, the International, suddenly becomes audible. Rushing into the central piazza, the Fascists discover that someone has placed a gramophone in the bell tower of the church. Clearing the piazza with menacing shouts, the Fascists fire their pistols up at the night sky.
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- Ordinary Violence in Mussolini's Italy , pp. 215 - 238Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010