In the 1930s France built twice as many houses as Italy did. ![]() But Mr Corner makes the case that democratic governments of the period did similar things, only rather better. ![]() His governments reorganised and extended Italy’s rudimentary welfare system. Mussolini did indeed do some good things (as any long-serving leader is likely to). Neither are they reflected in the view commonly held in Italy that Mussolini “did many good things”, but made just “one mistake” by allying with Hitler. Yet, as Mr Corner notes, while “Gestapo” and “ kgb” have become widely recognised and reviled terms, barely anyone recalls the ovra or the PolPol. Monitoring those suspected of dissent were a network of informers and two secret police forces. Almost every aspect of an individual’s well-being was dependent on party approval: “suitability for a job, for a licence, for a work permit, or for a pension would be decided at the discretion of the Fascist official”. ![]() Fascism created a nation that was partly supportive of it, and superficially enthusiastic, but also cowed by the enduring memory of the blackshirts’ reign of terror, and by a system of social control as rigorous as that later installed in communist East Germany.
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