Fascism in Popular Memory

This book is based on the oral life histories of about 70 men and women workers, born between the end of the last century and 1920, which are combined with sources such as police reports, documentary films and judicial documents. The interviewees recount their visions of life, of history, and of themselves; they call to memory the fascist period, and the ambivalent relationship between the Duce and the masses. A picture of resistence emerges, through such minor episodes as jokes and graffiti, wearing a red tie or whistling an old socialist tune, and through major issues such as abortions carried out in direct opposition to state propaganda. Acquiescence is also recalled, however, in the enrollment of children in fascist youth organisations or in the use of new state-controlled social services. The final chapter reconstructs an event which acquired great symbolic meaning: the eloquent and unexpected silence of the Fiat workers before Mussolini in 1939 at the inauguration of the Miraflori factory.Passerini, Luisa is the author of 'Fascism in Popular Memory', published 1987 under ISBN 9780521302906 and ISBN 0521302900.