Comics in black shirt

“Comic strips to train the perfect fascist”: this could more or less be the slogan with which to summarize what Claudio Carabba (1943-2020), long-time film critic of the Corriere della Sera, tells us in his “ Il fascismo comics ” ( Bompiani, 2024, pp. 320).

The volume, published way back in 1973, is now considered classic in the analysis of the omnipresence of Mussolini's ideology in Italian society of the twenty years. The objective of the regime, in fact, was to train the true fascist man and woman. For this reason, no area of individuals' education, including leisure, school and entertainment, should escape indoctrination.

Corriere dei Piccoli, L'Avventuroso, l'Intrepido, but also Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck: no newspaper for children and young people passed unscathed through the twenty years of fascism. None remained completely immune from the touch of the fundamental matrices of regime propaganda, such as courage, the exaltation of the new empire, class and racial prejudice, anti-communist hatred, the desire to erase from the minds of budding Italians those American models that had nevertheless established themselves through cinema and comics (Mandrake, Flash Gordon, to give just two examples). Every opportunity was good for the regime to influence the education of the youngest. The books were dominated by the stories of young Balillas who sacrificed themselves for their country or defeated Italy's enemies like little heroes. There was also a comic strip newspaper entitled "Il Balilla" (released between 1923 and 1943) and even the mathematics problems that were given to do at school were designed to convey a clear propaganda message to the pupils . In Mussolini's Italy, one had to be a fascist from the cradle, or rather even before, at least in the intentions of the regime.

Families, in fact, were encouraged to have as many children as possible in order to give their homeland more and more men and women devoted to the fascist cause. Boys and girls were therefore considered the heritage of fascism, which took care of their education by regimenting them in the organizations of the Opera Nazionale Balilla. Two things united everyone, girls and boys: a uniform to wear on official occasions, in which black and white predominated; and then the promise of absolute obedience and loyalty to Mussolini . Furthermore, in the twenty years of fascism, young people were indoctrinated from an early age to become perfect soldiers. The children were given a small wooden rifle; then, when you became Balilla and Avant-garde, you moved on to a real musket and the increasingly realistic training began. In short, first we played at war and then we were ready to do it seriously. For this reason, great importance was given to physical activity . A true Italian and a true fascist always had to be fit and athletic, not only for health and well-being issues as is used today, but to give the world a demonstration of the strength of the Italian "race". The girls also carried out physical activity, but in this case the objective was very specific: a fit body increased the possibility of having many healthy children.

It was impossible for the young people of the twenty years of fascism to escape the fascist propaganda that was present in every area of daily life, especially at school . The fascist regime permeated every aspect of the school environment, starting from the classroom furnishings. The Duce's phrases, in large letters on the panels hanging on the walls, served to imprint the basic principles of fascism in the minds of the schoolchildren, summarized in the motto "believe, obey and fight". A motto that we also find in comics, as Claudio Carabba shows us by lining up dozens of examples of fascism's "takeover" of an entire generation.