In January 1923, the young journalist Ernest Hemingway covered the Lausanne Conference for the Toronto Daily Star. His first encounter with Mussolini left him distinctly unimpressed. Ushered into a room along with other journalists, Hemingway found the Premier so deeply absorbed in a book that he did not bother to look up. Curious, Hemingway “tiptoed over behind him to see what the book was he was reading with such avid interest. It was a French–English dictionary—held upside down.”¹
Doing a search on Google Books regarding Mussolini and the United States, I came across a good work titled The United States and Fascist Italy: The Rise of American Finance in Europe, which in turn lead me to Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America, and I found copies thereof on Library Genesis.
You have it the wrong way around. Defection wasn’t some accident of history that ended up being consequential, it was something with a substantial lead-up.
People don’t try on different political hats and then change their philosophy. They have a set philosophy, and they try to make sense of what politics are the most reachable, and then if those don’t work out, they change their politics.
Political views are downstream from values, which in turn are downstream from worldview and philosophy. If you have people who self-identify as socialists but who have a might-makes-right outlook on the world, they’re not going to stay socialists for long.
I’m not lecturing a dead man, I’m pointing out how the Bolsheviks, at an earlier time, were more likely to be prone to certain mistakes that we have less excuse to make ourselves.
You shouldn’t be interested in any kind of formal association with people that prove themselves to be reactionaries. Red-brown alliances are only going to strengthen fascists by giving them the appearance of working-class support.
Upside down Benito will never get old
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you could say that it was fate that would lead him to being able to properly read a French-English dictionary.
Where do you find this stuff? Your posts are always a treasure.
Doing a search on Google Books regarding Mussolini and the United States, I came across a good work titled The United States and Fascist Italy: The Rise of American Finance in Europe, which in turn lead me to Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America, and I found copies thereof on Library Genesis.
Amazing, thank you ❤️❤️❤️
Meanwhile, a certain V. Ulyanov stated around the same time that Mussolini’s defection to fascism was a “huge loss” for the socialist movement.
It was, Mussolini wasn’t sharpest knife in the drawer, but he was a very talented agitator.
You want people with deep reactionary persuasions in the socialist movement with you?
If he stay and not defect it would mean he wouldn’t have those in the first place.
You have it the wrong way around. Defection wasn’t some accident of history that ended up being consequential, it was something with a substantial lead-up.
People don’t try on different political hats and then change their philosophy. They have a set philosophy, and they try to make sense of what politics are the most reachable, and then if those don’t work out, they change their politics.
Political views are downstream from values, which in turn are downstream from worldview and philosophy. If you have people who self-identify as socialists but who have a might-makes-right outlook on the world, they’re not going to stay socialists for long.
I’m baffled now, are you trying to lecture Lenin or you really never encountered simple what if musing in your life before?
I’m not lecturing a dead man, I’m pointing out how the Bolsheviks, at an earlier time, were more likely to be prone to certain mistakes that we have less excuse to make ourselves.
You shouldn’t be interested in any kind of formal association with people that prove themselves to be reactionaries. Red-brown alliances are only going to strengthen fascists by giving them the appearance of working-class support.