Italian Fascist Youth: Race--Italian Cultural Concept

Figure 1.--This photograph shows Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini inspecting a group of Balilla in Tobruk, Libya (March 15, 1937). This was a year before, under pressre fron Hitler, that Mussolini issued the Fascst race laws. Notice the ethnic mix of the boys. Tobruk is a port in eastern Libya, the nost fough over port in the World War II camnpaign in the Western Desert.

We have found very little information on Italian racism. Mussolini used the term Italian tace very commonly. But for years, unlike Hitler and the NAZIs, he never really defined it clearly. And his vuews changed over time. He sometimes thought og it in bioligical/ethnic terms. He at times he spoke of alarm about the possible extinction of 'white people' meanibg Eurooeans. In other speeches he denied the biological theory of race. But he comminly used the term refering ro the 'Italian Race' in countless speeces. Hitler in contrast spole of the German Volk, but not the German Race. As best we can tell he was not usung it as a biological/ethnic concept like the NAZIs. Rather for Mussolini it seems to have been a cultural concept. [McLean] This made a lot of sence because it could united people of diverse ethnic backgrounds. The ancestors of Italians are mostly pre-Indo-Europeans (Etruscans, Rhaetians, etc.) and Indo-Europeans (mostly Italic peoples, but also Greeks and Celts).The Germamic invasions accompamying the collapse of the Roman Empire do not seem to have significantly impacted the Italian ethnic make up. The cultural definition mant that Jews could join the Fascist Party and Balilla. And as we see here Arabs and Africans in the Balilla (figure 1). An Italian reader tells us, "The Fascist regime established colonial corps of Balilla in Libya, Somalia, and Eritrea. I know they were different corps although in the same organization of Italian Balillas. Probably that was made to have an organization to control the youth, and maitain the separation of races, according the law about races segregation issued in 1938." That is something you would never have seen in the Hitler Youth. The Hitler Youth leaders were not even interested in allowing itger Eurooeans to participate. Africans were only slightly above Jews in the NAZI racial hyerarchy. This is concept that Hitler found repungent. We see this fairly commonly in Italy's African colonies. They were full members, carrying rifles along side the Italian boys. There were not yet many Africans in Italy itself.

Sources

Mc Lean, Eden K. Mussolini's Children: Race and Elementary Education in Fascist Italy (University of Nebraska Press: 2018), 354p.