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> Mussolini [...] lacked the imperialist and colonial urges I'm not sure this is congruent with Italy's actions in Ethiopia, Albania and Greece.

• motohagiography 5y ago
  Indeed, and you're right, it deflates the "italian fascists were nationalists and not totalitarians," argument to a great extent. The rationale I think for separating them was the pretext of dubious historical claims to Albania via the "Roman" empire, vs. the global dominion aims of hitler and stalin - but even then, that argument is mainly in service of reinforcing the overarching idea of totalitarianism being a new, coherent, and unique 20th cen ideology and phenomenon, and maybe not as a complete read of the history. There is an argument to be made that totalitarianism itself wasn't new or notable or is even a coherent thing that can't be shown to have manifested in pretty much every other imperial effort. I've got ideas about some of its other sufficient conditions that still preserve it as a unique effect and form, and as far as an intellectual renaming of Evil goes, tot'ism is pretty close to what critics of fascism come up with as well. Some of these things only exist at a certain level of abstraction and then dissolve under further scrutiny.