Mussolini was nominally a socialist in his early years, so even though he left that political program behind and radically repressed leftists and liberals of all shades when he was actually in power some people insist that he was a socialist then, too. It’s on the same level as claiming that the Nazis were socialist because it was in their name.
I think it’s a more substantial criticism with Mussolini. While he went fash (obviously lol), he was able to take a ton of trade-unions and self-labeled socialists with him (something Bordiga focused on criticizing, naturally).
I think there is a danger of a squishy socialist/SocDem to social fash pipeline and you can often see it in the imperial core like with “socialists” that work for weapons manufacturers or CIA-adjacent NGOs. A particularly pernicious one is weapons company unions, where you get to witness a ton of nascently class conscious people hold their tongues when it might damage the precious local (warmonger) union jobs.
Mussolini was nominally a socialist in his early years, so even though he left that political program behind and radically repressed leftists and liberals of all shades when he was actually in power some people insist that he was a socialist then, too. It’s on the same level as claiming that the Nazis were socialist because it was in their name.
I think it’s a more substantial criticism with Mussolini. While he went fash (obviously lol), he was able to take a ton of trade-unions and self-labeled socialists with him (something Bordiga focused on criticizing, naturally).
I think there is a danger of a squishy socialist/SocDem to social fash pipeline and you can often see it in the imperial core like with “socialists” that work for weapons manufacturers or CIA-adjacent NGOs. A particularly pernicious one is weapons company unions, where you get to witness a ton of nascently class conscious people hold their tongues when it might damage the precious local (warmonger) union jobs.