"In the 1860s Sicilian revolts against the new "unitary" regime of the House of Savoy were ruthlessly suppressed, with thousands of Piedmontese carabinieri troops stationed in Palermo, Catania and Messina for over a decade. Initially, the Sicilian secessionist movement sought restoration of the exiled House of Bourbon of Naples (ousted in 1860). Decades later, with the increasing poverty of a region which (until the 1870s) had been more prosperous than most northern regions (now industrialized), the more radical Sicilian separatists desired full independence. This may seem arcane, but it partly explains the reluctance of many Sicilians to defend their "Italian" island when war came to their shores in 1943, and does much to define the kind of "liberation" that took place in Sicily, from "Italian" forces, as opposed to the liberation of peninsular regions which (after September 1943) were controlled primarily by German forces, augmented by the die-hard Fascists of Mussolini's short-lived Nazi puppet state, the Italian Social Republic ("Salò"). In reality, Sicily was one of the least Fascist, and least nationalist, regions of the Kingdom of Italy.
There was another subtle force at work. In view of widespread poverty, thousands of Sicilians emigrated in search of better lives abroad between 1890 and 1930. In the less populated northern regions of Lombardy and Piedmont, which by 1900 were at least marginally wealthier than Sicily, there was less emigration. This meant that many Sicilians, having close relatives in the United States (some of whom sent money to their families in Sicily), did not readily accept the Fascist propaganda that painted the Americans as barbaric animals. Fascism itself offered the Italians a mixed bag of realities, both good and bad, and it was less successful in the South than elsewhere.
Despite a few pragmatic and beneficial social programs (public housing projects, old-age and widows' pensions come to mind) initially praised by the British and Americans alike, Fascism rapidly evolved from a vaguely socialist, populist --if authoritarian-- movement in 1922 to a full-fledged dictatorship by 1928. Though not intrinsically monarchist, Fascism propped up the existing order of social classes through a nationalist philosophy embraced by many as a reaction against Communism, perceived as a worse evil. Protectionist policies shielding much of the economy from international influences created a certain false prosperity but illiteracy and poverty, while alleviated somewhat by an improved public education system, remained high. Italian society, despite a slightly improved industrial base, was still essentially agrarian, with more than sixty percent of the population involved in agricultural-related fields or minor trades.
Before long, Fascism evolved into a totalitarian system complete with its political exiles abroad (Umberto Nobile, Arturo Toscanini, Emilio Segré, Enrico Fermi, Sandro Pertini, Luigi Sturzo and thousands of others). In retrospect, however, the police state of the 1930s, with its repression and censorship, was generally acceptable to many Italians because, to the ordinary citizen, it was not much different from the state that existed twenty years earlier, particularly in Sicily. The intellectual and creative classes suffered most and, tragically, these represented a tiny minority in a nation of what seemed to consist primarily of semi-literate "peasants" and drones. Even before Fascism, the Kingdom of Italy, with its shadowy democracy and theoretical constitutional liberties, could not be said to have been a free or democratic state --or even a very prosperous one. Under Fascism, it remained a backward nation where (to cite a few examples) senators were appointees, women could not vote, the study of foreign languages was prohibited in public schools, public policy and even elections were rigged, severe nutritional diseases and malaria raged and millions still sought to emigrate for lack of opportunity. In its cultic cronyism, curbing of free expression and cruel treatment of human rights, the observable effects of Fascism (and the Nazism inspired by it) were not much different from those of Soviet-style communism. At the outbreak of war, the most obvious difference, at least to those in Allied nations, was that the Russians were on the Anglo-American side while the Italians were not.
Until Italy's declaration of war against the United States following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a number of pro-Fascist organizations thrived in cities such as New York, where Mayor La Guardia had spoken against them. Fascist activity of this kind ceased following the declaration of war, and indeed a number of Italian citizens active in such associations in the United States were arrested, to be interned for the duration of the war. In the United Kingdom, most adult Italian male citizens were arrested and imprisoned when Italy declared war against that nation."
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