metadata-only record, please check the publication for rights
Description:
This recording represents the Milizia volontatria per la sicurezza nazionale (MVSN), or Blackshirts/Squadrists, a militia founded a few months after Benito Mussolini came to power, from the Fascist militias that between 1919 and 1922 attacked opponents of the Fascist movement, led by socialists and communists, with extreme violence, using sticks and castor oil (a laxative and potentially lethal oil). Institutionalized by Benito Mussolini, the MVSN became a paramilitary corps which, in addition to controlling the violence of certain squadrists, carried out political policing and anti-dissent missions. It took part in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and the Spanish Civil War, eventually being integrated into the army (see Mauro Canali, "Milizia volontatria per la sicurezza nazionale", in Victoria De Grazia & Sergio Luzzatto (eds), Dizionario del fascismo. Vol. 2, L-Z, Milano, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 2019, pp. 129-132).