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Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekingona Show.
Thomas is here and we're going to continue the series
on mister Oswald Mosley how you doing, Thomas.
Speaker 2: Well, well, thanks for having me. Is always there's a
critical aspect of British fascism that tends to be neglected.
The UK and Japan both interestingly, there was in the
later show era Japan's the Japanese Empire's economic profile. It
wasn't the internal situation wasn't configured anything like the UK,
despite I mean supervisial parallels between like monarchy or something,
if you want to draw such conclusions like some of
these like midwid Court historians do. But their financial system
proved more robust than some but it's still there was
still some pretty catastrophic effects. So like in nineteen twenty nine,
the UK didn't end up like Germany, and their structural
unemployment wasn't as bad as the United States, but there
was some pretty catastrophic problems and people forget the UK
went off the gold standard. There was this mutiny, like
an out and out Royal Navy mutiny, because both officers
and enlisted saw their pay cut by something like twenty
five percent in real terms, okay, and it was explained
that well, these were austerity measures, and the leadership element
of the Royal Navy, I mean obviously the direct line
to not just to the Crown, but you know, but
to the Prime Minister. And they were trying to give
all these assurances but you know, to no avail, and
that kind of thing is a way of catching fire
proverbial lee. I mean, that's what and and in the
I mean, that's that's what happened in the final age
of the Gray War in the German Empire. Okay, and uh,
the Royal Navy had outsized clout for obvious reasons the
people who know the culture of the UK, So this
was pretty catastrohic. Moseley the way he came to fascism.
You know, we talked a lot about his class origins
being discreetly congruous to that sort of trajectory, you know,
And I make that point a lot in my own
work product and stuff, because this idea that it was
opportunistic or cynical is acid iron, because nobody would have
taken on that kind of rogues, you know, position if
he if he didn't believe in it and planning seeing
it through despite the consequences. But you know, Mosley also
he wasn't genuine thread of the working man, and he
had like he had an integralist view of of what
you know of what progressive politics should look like. And
something else to keep in mind too. One of the
reasons why, especially in the UK, like everybody was a
Keynesian like right and left and everything in between. The
reason people were susceptible to that error is because the
entire global financial system nacin does it may have been
in comparative and absolute terms, had completely collapsed and these
uncertainties couldn't just be allowed to resolve themselves over. Then
that's a decade or two decades there would have been
that you would have been just capitulating to revolutionary conditions.
And had they not been an out and out communist revolution,
there would have been like a total collapse of state institutions.
So said, the combinants of the body politic would have
would have evaporated, and people would have resorted to self
help in ways that would have culminated in a literal anarchy.
And even guys like Schumpeter, who was you know, I
believe that Trumpeter's business cycles is like the academic rebuttally Keynes.
Schumpeter was no kind of demand cider, okay, like it
all quite the contrary, but even he favored one time
shock therapy, you know, because he was he was commissioned
to try and help resolve the American situation early on
before he became persona on Grada with the New Dealers,
you know, and he favored, you know, like an infusion
of about five million dollars, which I can't give you
the exact figure adjusting for inflation, but that was a
tremendous amount of money in nineteen twenty nine. He favored
like a shock therapy flooding of of a currency markets
with public funding, as like a one time event that
would try and that would sort of stop or at
least mitigate the deflationary spiral. Okay, so everybody there was
not a single person who had like a Laisy Fair
review at this point, and you really couldn't. And in
Schumpeter's view, he said, look like you know, the yes,
there will be corrective structural features in coming decades, but
the political system won't abide it. So it doesn't matter
if that's you know, incorrect in terms of pure medical economics.
That was a bit of a digression, but it was
a sense of understand the political situation in the UK,
So what in real terms of what this led to
was the emergence of the national government in the United Kingdom.
And this was basically unprecedented, you know. And again the
economic slump, while not it's catastrophic in the UK, it
was the most severe it had ever been in history.
A key figure that kind of compromised confidence in the
government in the immediate aftermath of in the immediate aftermath
of the nineteen twenty nine crash, Philip Snowden, first Viscount Snowden.
He was the He was the Minister of the Exchequer,
and which for all practical purpose like a that's like
a cross between like a cabinet position at the at
the head of the treasury as well as being like
the chairman of the Federal Reserve, if such things existed,
then you know, he was based like the chief like
financial officer of the crown, you know. And he'd uh,
he he was uniquely like like labor interested a unique
sympathy for him, Okay, because he he tended. He kind
of built his reputation as a rhetorician as and and
sort of a dynamic figure with these denunciations of capitalism
and a kind of encyclopedic knowledge of monetary theory and things.
You know, the problem was like there was no real
substance theory. It was just that it was it was
it was knowledge of elabor at trivia. And he was
the first Chancellor of the Exchequer who represented know, who
represented the Labor Party. But he broke with what was
official Labor policy in nineteen thirty one visa the austerity measures,
and he got expelled from the party. And then later
that year Labor was crushed by the National Government Coalition
and he was succeeded as a Chancellor of the ex
Checker by Neville Chamberlain. Interestingly, I mean I think I
think Chamberlain would have eventually I'm Prime Minister anyway, but
it was the crisis situation that really sort of a
leap frog Chamberlain into the role. But at the helm
of the National Government Coalition was McDonald, James McDonald, James
Ramsey McDonald. He went by Ramsey McDonald. He's kind of
a forgotten prime minister, and that's that's a major blind
spot even of a lot of revision. It's not just
court historians, because he was fundamentally important. McDonald had been
one of the founders of the Labor Party. Along with
Pier Hardy and Arthur Henderson. And he he had been
a staunch opponent of the Great War and he never
wavered from a from that perspective. And he basically he's
the one he was able to break ranks with labor
in doctrinal terms in the wake of the Invergarden mutiny,
which is what I just referenced that the outset of
this discussion. But uh, you know, and he he formed
uh and this and he also he was able to
court the Tory the Tories who defected to the National
Coalition because uh, he promised to uh carry out austerity
measures that would defend and protect the gold standards so
it would survive as like the basis of monetary policy,
which failed, and that's one of the things that took
down Ramsey's government. But the phraseology that he employed in
nineteen thirty one and calling for a general election was
he said, I need, I need to quote doctor's mandate
to fix this economy, you know. And again like people
are gonna look at that to oh, that's just typical
like interventionist kinsy and socialism, Like yeah, it is, but
you can't consider this, you know, In like nineteen sixties
or seventies or eighties terms or today's terms. You know,
I think I think McDonald would have advocated that anyway,
just because of his understanding of economics, or like misunderstanding,
if you will. But to say there was a fertile
ground for those kinds of proposed administrative remedies to macroeconomic frailies,
that doesn't even begin to describe it. It was a totally
iring world and information awareness and the ability to manage
data at scale and real time that has totally completely
changed everything in terms of fiscal policy, economic planning, consumer confidence,
the trajectory of money, the way people approached stocks and
capital investments, like everything. Okay, it's it's like comparing mathematics
by advocates to mathematics by like a nineteen sixties supercomputer,
if you'll allow an imperfect metaphor. But this was the
backdrop that Mosley was dealing with, you know. And he
you know, he was about the youngest parliamentarian save a
Fanian candidate who was boycotting the Commons. You know when
he began, when Mosey began his his political career, you know,
he he was kind of perfectly Mosey. I mean he
was kind of perfectly situated to represent like a revolutionary
tendency that was at the same time patriotic. You know.
Mosey started talking right around this time. He had a
more than casual French of the H. G. Wells, and
he started talking about corporatism, and he said, look, the
only chance of successful progress in this country, and really
the only the only way we're going to salvage the
United Kingdom salvage Britain not just as uh, a society
that's not racked by class war and that retains an
integral culture and Morgan census, but like, the only way
that that Britain is going to endure is a world power,
you know, is we we've got to find a way
to cooperate with, you know, the the kind of top
intelligency of big business. Well's interestingly one of his lesser
known works these days. It's a it was like a novella.
You'd probably describe it in terms of length and and
and sort of narrative structure. It's called The Autocracy of
Mister Pelham, and it's basically it's sort of like the
like like an Anglo Saxon version of Citizen Kane, but
it's about this fascist political leader. He's kind of like
an anglophone Mussolini, and it's really it's interesting, you know,
and this is gonna be significant in a moment in
terms in terms of what we described as far as
this like temporal snapshot of Mosey's career, as love the
European situation. Mussoleni at this point was viewed as a
heroic individual and people liked him, you know. That's why
some years later the Four Powers packed, which when ultimately,
like the signatories put pen to paper faguirly and literally
the substance of it had been gutted by a redaction.
But Mussolni was viewed as this like dynamic savior of
Italy and a man who was like on the cusp
of a you know, like the new political theory and praxis,
and Italy was an important country then you know, like
I'm not trashing Italy. I think Italians are great, and
I think Italy is an awesome pilguer. But Italy had
they were far more significant, not just power political terms,
but in cultural terms. You know, like a lot of
a lot of trends like emerged from there, kind of
like the way kind of like the way people looked
at the UK in the sixties. You know, it was
kind of like the last Gas but like the UK
is like cultural relevancy on the world stage, okay, like
in political terms, like that's kind of people view to Italy.
And this was augmented by the fact that on the continent,
but especially in Italy, like the arts and cultural product
had this outsized impact on politics and vice versa. You know,
so the fact that these like died in the wall
like Anglos as well as as well as some of
these on the other side, some of these iris cat
like Fenian types, like look at Mussolini is ass like
a heroic like man, you know, like a man's man.
And and the and the kind of the kind of
the kind of revolutionary you who can reconcile, you know,
the the the class wore crisis. You know that that
wasn't like moose That that wasn't just like a g
Wells and uh and Moseley being a couple of eccentrics.
That was that was a not uncommon thought or sentiment.
And uh George Bernard Shaw was another figure in this
kind of early Mosey Mulu and I made the point
a lot. And the guy who wrote there's this interesting
academic I think he was at University of Vermont. He's
the guy who wrote this really good bo William Pierce
that Peers collaborated on. It was called Fame of a
Dead Man's Deeds. I believe the guy's name is Robert Griffin.
But Griffin wrote a really good book about British fascism,
and he talked about how George Bernard Shaw was an
essential cultural figure in then Milleu and he was. And
people totally misunderstand this. I don't know if it's deliberate
because they don't want to credit an important literary giant
with having anything to do with fascism. I don't know
if it's ignorance. But you know, like Man and Superman,
which we'll get into in a moment, like the stage play,
that's both like a Nietzschean terrible but it it also
is like a political metaphor in defensive fascism. Okay, and
Shaw was a Shaw directly behooed young Moseley. He said, look,
you've got to you've got to break with labor. You've
got to break with the Labor Party, and you've got
to start. You've got to start a new movement, you
know it. And he's like, you can't. You've got to
avoid the You've got to you've got to avoid the
impulse to moderate or to compromise like McDonald did you know?
And he and this is a McDonald's on his way out.
He's like that, that didn't That didn't save the prime minister.
It's not gonna save you either. But also obviously, like
show a sensibility was one of extreme vitalism and historical
situated in this so we you know, he's like, we
this is something that's that transcends like parliamentarism and anything
like that. Shaw later stepped back from involvement in party
politics or bleak or otherwise. But I I see no
evidence that he ever changed his mind, you know. And
but that's that's a that's an essential influence, even more
so than in some of these Uh what's it?
Speaker 1: Can I interrupt them?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Most people would relate Shaw and Wells more to the
Fabian Society, I mean four volume set. I read his
four volume set on the History of Man and it's
very it's it's almost like a progressive Bible.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and well Wells wasn't any kind of fascist,
and it's a but I think Shaw basically was, you know.
But the one of the reasons why the communists were
always saying that fascism is just like a crisist motality
of capitalism, and that's why it's so insidious and it's
hijacking the wabor movement and poisoning the minds of the proletariat.
They're there. There's a reason why they that was such
a graver area concerned and why it like stirred their
hostilities so much, because fascism was what a lot of
people in part probably subconsciously wanted to see develop, but
they didn't have the conceptual vocabulary yet to describe it,
but they could identify it when they saw it. And
especially in the UK, the roots of this kind of
like toxic secularism was already like well under way. So
you know, if you were if you were part of
like polite society and you're going to abide bourgeois convention
about what's morally appropriate, well, you're any any any kind
of radical or dynamic ideas you have, you're gonna you're
gonna suggest that those energies be mitigated by appeals to
utopian socialism and garbage like that. But uh, Wells, I
don't think Wells was particularly political. I think Wells he
obviously read a lot of Carlisle, and he he had
a belief in messianic personages and in history, and he
thought hero worship was a good thing. And he liked
Mussolini and a lot of left wingers like Mussolini. But
I mean some of them for half baked reasons and
and for a thing, you know, for ill understood and
ill understood you know, concepts and incomplete understandings. But uh,
a lot of them who were sophisticated, like Mussolini, for
reasons that aren't inconsistent with you know, they're the core
of that ideological culture. No, that's important to keep in mind.
And uh, already at this time, Moseley's enemies were talking
about him as like the English Hitler, you know, which
was something of a backhanded compliment, because Hitler at this
point was what was killing it, you know. Nineteen twenty
nine was the real breakthrough, you know. But uh, you know,
so Mosley, this all this is, this culminated in Moseley
establishing the New Party, like literally, he called it the
New Party. Mosley and his first wife, who also by
that time was a member of Parliament, and they were
joined by a cadre of labor rights who defected, and
UH mostly was able to support their loyalty by the
dissemination of a can be known as the mostly Memo. Okay,
it was basically capitalizing how we talked about a minute ago,
this enthusiasm for Mussolini that was born of UH, you know,
a belief in the need for like an interventionist restructuring
of the economy, and a belief that at a nascent
globalized economy, you know it, variables could not be left
to uncertainty awaiting structural correction because it would lead to
one tragedy that commons after another. You know, the people
like the Nunzio and Ft Marionnetti among British society, and
like literary circles, they were respected like like literate people
read them and admired their output. You know, Shaw himself
around this time he said that Mussolini exemplified true socialism
more than any British labor right. I mean, part of
that was probably he liked to be an iconoclass, but
he wasn't wrong. I mean, if as it should be
clear to anybody who is familiar with the irrelevantlar and
source material. And there was also there there was this
kind of just like fixation on Caesarism at the time
in the UK. There's a whole bunch of like pop
history books that came out about the Roman Empire. There's
this one popular historian named George P. Baker. He wrote
this book, uh called sull of the Fortunate the Great Dictator.
There was another book, uh he wrote on Hannibal. There
was a bunch of uh popular biphies that Julius Caesar,
you know, and they they virtually all of them contained
these sorts of uh polemic about the contemporary relevance of
you know, of Caesarism, and how like dictatorship is not
this evil thing, you know, and how history, particularly crisis
modalities they're in you know, they they select for you know,
heroic personages like rising to the occasion, you know, and
you you know, the you can't just like one of
the problems, you know, the part of the malaise as
well as part of the callous and this that's led
the class war in the UK is just kind of
like writing off the suffering of the of the laboring
classes as well. That's that, that's just you know, the
tragedy history, you know that, that's just you know, the
creative destruction, you know, where that's just you know, corrective
mechanisms mean that some people are gonna entire classes or
of humans are gonna proverbially drown, you know, while others
you know, swim and thry. You know. So there was
a much more organic kind of foundation the emergency of
a British fascism of like a true sort, because like
we talked about last time, kind of the early iterations
of like British fascism, it was basically these like out
of touch tories who they like the anti communism of
Mussolini and the fascists, and they like the pageantry and optics,
but they didn't really know what the hell they were
talking about, you know, or they were like symbolton like uh,
white racialists like Arnold Leese, who were trying to extrapolate
you know, like Darwinian reductionist nonsense to you know, to
power political affairs. You know that but that that that
kind of that kind of bullshit had largely been swept
away by you know the climate of post nineteen twenty
nine for reasons like what I just enumerated or elucidated
rather so the new party it was, it's a sentence.
He was brief and kind of meteoric, and the foundations
of what became the British Union of Fascists were absolutely
laid during this kind of nasty phase. Is December sixth
ninety and thirty that mostly he published like an expanded
and probably probably annotated version of the mostly memorandum, which
mostly UH and his wife, who was also a member
of Parliament. Like I said, Lady Cynthia and Uh, fifteen
of these defecting labor MPs signed off on. It was
February ninety and thirty one mostly formally resigned from labor.
He wants a new party the following day, March first,
nineteen thirty one. Excuse me and us to these guys.
Most these defecting labor rights sat in the House of
Comments as independence. A couple resigned because there will become
clayer in the hindsight, this early kind of cadre that
mostly built around himself, with some exceptions, some of these
people weren't really committed, and even if they were, they
they didn't they didn't really they kind of viewed Moldy
there trying to instinue it himself into like a kingmaker
role and a spoiler element and if that makes any sense.
And they figured that, you know, we'll be able to
like reconstitute the government like within you know, the parameters.
That was feasible, you know, according to the the political situation,
you know, you know, like what we want to accomplish
in terms of you know, repealing these austerity measures and
and and and creating some kind of corporative structure that
will have permanent legs. That that was not realistic for
a lot of reasons. That's also not what Mosley was
trying to do. And we'll get into what I mean
in a minute. What Moseley was was able to do.
He started being able to attract money, particularly from some
of the lesser nobility, and most significantly from uh this
guy Lord Newfield, who was trying to carve out a
presence in print media. And Mosley what he always covetated.
He knew that William Randolph Hurst wasn't admirer of Mussolini
and even a little bit I'm getting a little ahead
of myself. And Moseley's objective was to capture a patron
like a Hearst, But what he got was about fifty
thousand pounds sterling from Newfield, which he utilized to launch
a magazine called Action, which later kind of morphed into
the British Union of Fascists newspaper. But as the New
Party got underway, there was an information blackout from the establishment,
so this was especially imperative. The New Party produced a
film A it was like one half propaganda film, like
one half statement of their platform and core principles. It
was edited by Harold Nicholson, who was uh who was uh.
He had he had his he had his hands in
print media and in the newspaper and publishing industry as
well as in you know, like the nascent film industry.
You know, he was uh in the early days that
you could kind of view him as like the New
Party information minister. And this film uh was actually very
professionally done, but uh it was the the censors bandit
on grounds that it would quote bring Parliament into disrepute,
and there was one it was the film was interspersed
with like dramatic reconstructions and uh, you know, staged uh
scenarios with actual footage and there were some films some
parliamentarians literally sleeping while Commons was in session, and that's
what they focused on, and they're like, this is slanderous,
you know, this is this is this is a hit
piece on the Commons. You know, it's trying to is
trying to bring the government to this repute, you know,
which was obviously nonsense and basically without president other than
during wartime, you know, most importantly what Mosey did at
this time he established a direct action militia. Later they
became the Black Shirts. Colloquially they were called the Biff Boys.
The captain of this militia was this English rugby star
named Peter Howard, and Moseley's notion was, you know, we've
got here. I mean most he was kind of a
rough in neck character anyway, you know at Sanders, you know,
he was known for brawling and stuff like just for
ships and kicks as well as the defend matters of honor.
You know, he'd been a boxer until some of his
superiors and uh sort of mentors like advised him, you know,
you you should take up a gentleman's sport like fencings.
That's what he did. But you know, well, he really
did have like a thug element to him, you know,
and uh so, I mean he he enjoyed that kind
of stuff, but also it was essential and he saw
the writing on the wall. And even at this time
he'd been watching what the Hitler government was was doing
or when the National so he was watching like what
the national Solis had been doing when they broke through
to the to the Reichs. This is before this was
just before Hitler was made Chancellor Reichs Coosler. But uh,
you know, he realized that, uh, you know, but the
leaves of our problems are are gonna be the fact
that you know, our movies aren't aren't shown in the cinema,
and there's a blackout on on our affairs and our
successes and in in in print media. You know where
we're we're gonna have to fight it out in the
street if if we're gonna break through like the National
Socialists did and and like the Fascists did, and uh,
like I said, although most of what the New Party,
most of its sociological kind of infrastructure was shed by
the time they read branded as the BUF, but the
New Party, the New Party youth militia, you know, which
became the black Shirts. Like that that remained. The first
electoral contest was that it was for There was a
by election for Ashton under Lynn Line because the MP
had died in office. Alan Young, who was an early
Mosley acolyte, stood against William Risbon, and there the new
party had only a thread to organization on the ground.
Young polled fifteen or sixteen percent, which effectively did split
the labor vote and allowed a concert of MP to
return to the Commons, which could be viewed as a
mission accomplished, because I mean I did force people to
take the most the organizations seriously. But again, even even
at this early stage, Mosley wasn't trying to position himself
as spoiler, and he wasn't the permise. The new party
wasn't like the Dixie Kratz or something who were you know,
head in mind, what Wallace was trying to accomplish, not
like the I mean, what Wallace accomplished was was remarkable
when I in the American system. That was kind of
a stroke and genius. But I'm not suggesting something punitive
about that. But that's simply not what Mosley was trying
to accomplish the kind of critical. Uh. The kind of
critical event or juncture was when Moseley, in a delegation
of New Party types went to Rome. Mosey went to
Rome twice. He went in ninety thirty two and ninety
thirty three, and the both of these were instrumental in
the fortunes of of what became the BUF, as well
as in Mosley's kind of personal development as a as
a fascist. And at this time too, Mosley issued a
statement and he said that he said that class war
and particularly the situation of the communists and some of
the affiliated trade union movements. He said that that he said,
uh this this was supposed to be an internal memo,
but it was. It was leaked. I think people speculate
it might have been deliberately leaked by Mosley himself. I
don't believe that, but I I there might have been
some like Ledgered Maine on the side of the New
Party that just it's kind of bring attention to the organization.
But uh, well, he was accused of welcoming revolutionary conditions
because he said that he said that we need we
need some sort of class war, at least the threat
of it, to uh facilitate what he called the provocative
rather than tranquilizing effect. Had he directly referred to the
situation in Vaimar and in Italy, and he was savaged in
the mainstream press. You know, he was called an anarchist,
he was called a communist. He was accused and in
an open session of the Commons of quote cynically welcoming
disorder as a way of publicizing his readiness to deal
with red disruption and the quote most of these rebuttal wash.
He said, our long term purpose and needs to quote
to be to take control at a revolutionary situation, which
is absolutely correct. But this uh made headlines quite literally,
not just in the UK, but also on the continent.
And this is also when he began openly within his
inner circle and particularly in the way he addressed the
new Party militia. He started pulling out the National Socialist Movement,
it's the model organization. In June nineteen thirty one, he
actually sent two Emis Series Major Thompson and Leslie Cummings
to Germany to liaise with National Socialists and to talk
to say Cadres and gal Lighters and whoever else to
get an audience with about you know, the the direct
action methods employed, you know, in the revolutionary conditions, and
uh they actually visited uh the Brown House in Munich,
you know, National Socialist headquarters, and uh, this very much
came from Moseley. The party had more of a a
committee structure. There wasn't the kind of fure prin zip
or equivalent, but mostly controlled the party's funds. And uh, ultimately,
I mean policy emanated from from him and his pen
you know. So the it's not as if he fell
into the influence of like at the time like uh,
some of his like well intentioned but misguided friends and
then that and this kind of mythology endured like for
decades for people thinking that this was like you know,
they were helping Moseley or his memory like, oh he
just fell into the influence of fascists, you know that
this mose was was was misled. I mean that that's
not a sense I mean for all kinds of reasons
that should be obvious, but it but he wasn't. He
he didn't come into the sway of some like Nazi
cadre or whatever like or you know what whatever whatever whatever.
Some of these tory types like admired and admire Mosley,
like like to claim. But that's also the effect like
Alan Young, you know who, who who stood for who
stood you know who challenged the by election and the
new party ticket. You know, he he he left the
party immediately when it became clear that you know, they
were moving towards them. Over at fascism, Beaverbrook, uh said, correctly,
he said not. He said, any party that's going to
challenge the establishment for for the loyalty of the body politic,
but especially you know, like a fascistic element would require
he meant sums of money, but also like a base
of true journalistic support, you know, and in Mosley's view,
you know, raising money. Money is always a problem. But
that's but it's a problem we remedied overcoming what he called,
not incorrectly, the conspiracy of silence in in media was
was the real issue. And so I mean the branding,
I mean, don't gonna be wrong. Well, he was a
he was a doctrinaire fascist and kind of the pure
purest sense. But he he knew that uh ran off Hers,
for example, had invested over a million dollars in uh
Mussolini's cause early on, just for the sake of a
disseminating you know, the fascist position and and facilitating the
psychological effect of it being you know, like a truly
ubiquitous movement, you know, and in those days, like print
media was really the only game in town, and like
day to day like paral terms, you know, I mean,
like yeah, you visual media nascent as it was, it
had a huge impact, but that was expensive, it was infrequent,
and you know, you needed uh you you needed uh
you basically needed like a newspaper that was already established
that would carry the your propaganda neese, you know. And
the way the National Socialist accomplished accomplished that was somewhat unusual.
But it was a very different media culture on the
continent and especially in especially in Germany. And also it
was uh, I mean not this isn't a discussion of
the of the German situation, but it doesn't need to
be noted. You know, Hitler's barnstorming was something that made
up for a lot of the you know, a lot
of these a lot of these kind of shortfalls in
and in an active propagandas sector, you know, but like
that wasn't that wasn't feasible in the United Kingdom for
a few different reasons. And also like the UK. It
was only the first true kind of like newspaper culture
in my opinion, you know, like way more so than
the United States. Although the United States it was even
more so than on the continent. But that's that's kind
of a subject for its own dedicated God. But when
uh when Mosley actually when he visited Rome for the
first time in januaryinety thirty two, he justified it to uh,
the party cadre as uh and we need we need
to study, you know, the modern fascist movement wherever it lives,
you know, and he all he intended on visiting, He
intended on visiting the Soviet Union too. Well, that never
came to fruition because knowing is he did.
Speaker 1: That.
Speaker 2: Uh, you know, Mussolini spent a lot of time studying
Leninist political warfare. The Soviet Union as a Stalin was
truly kind of consolidating the critical infrastructure. It wasn't it
wasn't really clear what the internal situation was in the
Soviet Union all but what was clear was that, you know,
against all expectations and against all probabilities, you know, a
revolutionary cadre structure without real support when that body politic
at scale was able to conquer the largest country on
this planet, you know, just for context, But in In
and plus two, like Lenin had that there'd been a
weird uh kind of conceptual discourse with in the communists
and Mussolini. Like before Uh in Mussolini's revolutionary socialist days,
Lenin had viewed him as uh like the most potentially
if you, Lenin gewed him as the revolutionary on the
content with the most potential Mussolini. And interestingly Lenin Lenin
believed that mus Leni had been corrupted by his experience
at the front and that the the adoption of the
Fascist party platform was both cynical and pragmatic, and you know,
owing to communist epistemic assumptions. You know, well, you know,
Moose Leni was co opted by capitalists, you know, because
this is this is this is just you know, a
crisis modality of capitalism and it's it's drawing upon symbolic
psychology to you know, to convince people that it represents
a different tendency when it's it's really it's it's really
just you know, crisis mode industrial capitalism under like a
different apparently fresh guys. But Mozi was treated like a
celebrity in Italy, which is which is interesting because Mussolini
notoriously was not welcoming of people who were well, you know,
propritical purposes like making Hodge the fancist Italy to you know,
pay homage, to tell duce or to try and lean
some some some esoteric knowledge of of of of revolutionary
ambition or something or political soldiery. You know. It's but uh,
the Italians I think had a certain the Italians and
the English traditionally kind of respected each other. Each respects
the other for what what they're not, for what they
themselves are not. I think that's part of it. But
you know, it's also the key to just as Hitler recognized,
you know, uh, Mussolini was more of early ecumenical in
ideological terms. I mean, Hitler was no German nationalists. Quite
the opposite. I mean we've discussed that before. However, Hitler
didn't view national socialism as some ideological paradigm that was
you know, universally applicable to you know, world historical processes.
You know, That's why, with the exception of the independent
State of Croatia, Hitler really didn't back you know, like
national socialist movements like out outside of the the core
of the right. Mussolini believed in a fascist international quite literally,
and there there actually was like a Fascist International conference,
which I think is a really fancying topic in nineteen
thirty five. I think, but because it may like despite
somebody congruously like Musli was notorious for snubbing you know,
fascist cadres and and their leadership elopment when they got
to visit, but Mussolini was uh was treated, uh or
mostly was treated like a you know, like a like
a celebrity in Italy, and they interestingly too and one
of uh, like mus Leans or uh, mostes bographers tend
to fall back. They didn't have fallen one side or
the other of of this issue. Some people claim that
Mosey wasn't at all anti Semitic. I mean, I don't
like that term, but just for the sake of you know, intelligibility,
Fascist Italy in the they there were race laws that
were basically reflected the Nuremberg laws that were passed later on,
in part owing to I think the brutalizing effect of
the war as well as, uh, the increasing influence of
the Reich on their internal situation. So there wasn't there
wasn't this like a hard and fast like racialism in Italy.
But to say like they weren't like anti Jewish in
political terms, I think it's naive and just like incorrect.
You know, Mosley had some prominent Jews in his inner circle,
at least in the New Party days. You know, Moley
being like an avid uh boxing aficionado throughout his whole life.
There's a relatorweight champione Saw mendel Off. He fought under
the name kid Lewis. You know, he was like an
ethnic Jew and he and he'd he'd do security with them,
you know, with what became the black Shirts, you know,
and uh, he seemed very much to be on board
with the program. He wasn't just doing it for money
or nothing on the order. Mostly Uh never shied from
the Jewish question later, but he he also never talked
about it in biologically racialist terms. I think that owes
to the internal situation of the UK. I don't. I don't.
I think it owes any emulation of Mussolini is as
some sort of moral arbiter of of fascist ethics or something.
But I just put that out there because I know
it's gonna come up either in the comments or you know,
people are gonna want to discuss it, and which is fine.
I'm not saying they shouldn't, but it was that was, uh,
that was the true turning point in my opinion. I
think by nineteen thirty one most was a fascist and
in all but name, but after after their turn from Italy,
and obviously it was you know, it was mere months
not years later that the BUF was was consolidated, essentially
by assimilating all the fascist elements that exhibited any viability
in Gameness and in England and Scotland. Interestingly, you know,
one of the things that caused, uh, mostly the initial
falling out with with his National Liberal fellows was on
the Irish issue and what he viewed as their you know,
eject callousness towards the Irish. In Scotland, many, if not most,
of the fashion of any significance fascist cadres. They were,
they were arch loyalists, they were very sectarian. And Billy
Fullerton he was the he was a gangster and he
was the original, the original Billy Boys mob. You know,
they were like a they were a sectarian, uh gang
and uh he was a BUF partisan. So that that
led to kind of a delicate situation, which I think
what it caused UH a real rift. Had the b
U f F had had the I mean, the b
us fortunes ultimately became in extrictly bound up with that
of the access and the German Reich for obvious reasons,
and the Kingdom of Italy. Had UH had fascism endured
in a counterfactual historical scenario, it's an interesting question, like
how the matter of Ireland and sectarian hostility would have
played out. But that's probably too kind of speculative and abstract.
But I think we're coming up on about an hour.
I promise will wrap it up in the next episode.
I hope this was informative and entertaining to all the
subs and not just dry and trivial. But like I said,
this is a subject near and dear to my heart,
in addition to being you know, very much in my
very you know very much kind of at the center
of my research interest. So yeah, well we'll reconvene in
a few days. I'm going on vacation this weekend. I
know you know that, but I think I deserve a
Thomas cation, Like I travel a lot, but you know,
not probably seems like I don't do much like on
these traveling johnts, like I just saw we just saw
each other in Atlanta, yeah, man, which was great. Yeah.
But I'll be back Sunday night, and I uh, I'll
be crossing paths with a bunch of the OGC guys,
so I'll give them your best course. Yeah. But yeah,
well we'll reconvene as soon as I get back. Man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think anybody, any of the subs are
going to complain about five episodes on mister Mosley. So
do you quick plugs?
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Man. The best place to seek out
my content is this substick is real Thomas seven seven
seven at subsec dot com. I uh, I'm a good
count of with my friend Rake, who who edited our movie.
When I get back from our gon, we're gonna release
the movie and I'm gonna release steel Storm too, and
not steel Storm too, I mean in addition, also, I've
got plenty of mind Paezers season three content that is
on schedule to be released bi weekly moving forward. But uh,
I know there's been some delays in steel Storm, and
I want to keep people posted on the movie. But
as soon as I get back. I'm going to decide
the best way to upload it, like in terms of
what platforms, and I'm very excited and I think people
will really enjoy it. But I'm on social media. My
alt is at Capel r e A L underscore number
seven H m as seven seven seven. You can always visit.
My website is Thomas seven seven seven dot com. But
it's it's it's under construction. I mean you can still
access it and stuff, but it needs work. And I've
got a lot of my play right now. But that's
gonna get resolved too, I promise. But yeah, that's that's uh,
that's what I got, and that's all not feeling great.
So forgive me if I I forgive me if this
was less cogent than it should have been.
Speaker 1: I don't think any of them. I don't think anybody.
I don't think anybody will be able to tell you
we're sick. This was, this was, this is great.
Speaker 2: Okay, No, thank you, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Until until episode five, thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you. M H.