WEBVTT - Part One: All the People Who Tried to Kill Mussolini 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:04.680 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:07.800 Hello, and welcome to cool People did cool stuff. We're 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:11.520 back in case you noticed, we weren't here, but now 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:17.040 we're here. The we in this case is me Murder Kiljoy, 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:22.200 and my producer Sophie Hi Sophie, my Magpie, and my. 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:27.360 Guest Robert Evans Hi Magpie. I listened to when I 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:30.240 was buying Hey today. Right before this, I went to 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:32.920 go get hay for my livestock at the feed store 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:36.839 and they were playing that song Brandy, And so now 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:39.720 I am in my head remixing that song instead of 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:43.559 being about a woman whose lover dies at sea, to 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:45.720 be about you making podcasts. 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:52.239 Excellent, Well, we can make hay from that one time 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:53.800 Robert and I went and got Hey, and it was 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:55.480 the first time in a little while at my pickup 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:57.320 truck got to be a pickup truck. Besides, well, I 0:00:57.320 --> 0:00:59.920 guess it was a camper. Actually, we filled my camp 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:02.640 full of hay, is what happened. Yes, And it took 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:04.080 me a long time to get all the hay out. 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:05.840 It does take a long time to get all the 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:06.480 hay out. 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:09.600 But it's worth it because then the goats got to eat. 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:11.959 Hay, and the goats love hay So. 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:15.800 Speaking of this week, speaking of saying hey, oh we 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:17.120 should say hey to Rory. 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:20.160 Who's our audio engineer? Hi Rory, Hi Riight, Hi Rory? 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:23.440 And our theme music was written forced by unwoman and 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:28.720 for no particular reason, not at all. I actually genuinely 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:31.280 picked the subject and started researching it before the activities 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:32.199 that happened last week. 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:36.080 You did like, like, I can vouch for you. 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:39.240 You and I'm glad you don't believe don't have to 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:40.360 vouch for me in court about it. 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:42.039 I'm just but but I would, and it would be 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:45.320 I would be truthful. I have like documentation full. 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:47.840 It's true because the thing we're going to talk about, 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:51.800 Robert Evans, have you ever heard of people trying to 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:54.160 assassinate people that they don't like? 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.280 No assassinations. No one would ever do such a thing. 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:00.280 No one would ever do such a thing and then 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:03.920 have it immediately cause Blue Cross Blue Shield to reverse 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:08.480 the policy on denying claims arbitrarily when the surgery takes 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:11.360 too long to pay for anesthetic. That would never happen. 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:14.480 No, there's not a whole saying about direct action gets 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:16.400 the goods. You all are listening to this in the future, 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:19.120 where the knock on effects will have become more clear. 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:21.239 But right now we know very We only know one 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:23.160 knock on effect of last week. 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:25.480 Which is if you've got blue Cross, you now have 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:28.000 to be less worried about getting surgery. 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:29.919 Yeah, and waking up in the middle of surgery, which 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:31.160 is basically everyone's nightmare. 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:31.920 Yeah. 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:33.320 Literally, that is. 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:36.120 So like, so many people have that fear, and that 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:39.160 it's grulish. Yeah, so goulish, it's so gross. 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.640 Well, the person that we're going to talk about attempting 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:46.840 to assassinate in the past, who's already dead, is a 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:50.120 little fascist he might have heard of named Mussolini. 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:56.960 Mussolini, I hardly know Leini. Okay, pass, and it's not 0:02:57.000 --> 0:03:00.880 gonna work. Sorry, Mussolini. 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:04.640 Originally this was going to be a two parter where 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:07.360 one part was the people who tried when Mussolini was 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:09.400 coming up, and then the second part was going to 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:12.560 be people who succeeded when he was coming down. But 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:15.280 it's actually all going to be about people who tried 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:17.160 when he was coming up because there were so many 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:19.200 Did you know that an awful lot of people tried 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:20.079 to kill Mussolini? 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:23.600 Yes, I mean it's like with Hitler, right, like, you've 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:25.480 got that guy who tried to blow him up, and 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:28.600 that and almost did that fucking carpenter who tried to 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:29.919 blow him up in one of the halls. He was 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:33.760 speaking at all sorts of pre attempts. So I wasn't 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:36.080 really familiar with the ones on Mussolini, but I was 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:37.280 sure there had been some. 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:41.240 We're going to talk about I think eight of them 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:42.840 today or this week. 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:46.080 Yeah, that sounds like the right himount Yeah. 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.760 And so far, by my account, I was counting right 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:50.840 before I recorded. I was talking to one of my 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:53.520 friends about it. So far, by my account, we've got 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:58.320 one socialist, one Catholic, one Republican, and five anarchists attempted 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:05.240 to kill Mussolini. So, Benito Mussolini is famously one of 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:09.200 the founders of fascism, the ideology that is genuinely and 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:11.560 truly bad. That ninety five percent of the people on 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:14.720 this planet agree is bad. We just don't agree about 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:16.520 what counts as fascism. 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:23.080 Yes, that's part of the problem. Yeah, yeah, it. 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:26.520 Doesn't help that. I mean, because some people use fascism 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:30.040 to just being anyone I don't like or any authoritarianism, right, 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:33.760 And that's not an accurate way to talk about things. 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:36.360 We shouldn't call our enemies fascists when they're not fascists. 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:41.480 Now, like Stalin wasn't really a fascist, no, because in 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:45.400 part fascists come to power through popular acclaim as a 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:48.960 result of like setting themselves up in opposition to the left. 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.000 There's this also idea that Stalin does kind of fit 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:56.400 in with the attitude that like the fascist dictator embodies 0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:59.080 the people in some way, although the way in which 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:02.400 like Soviet propaganda talk about Stalin was actually quite different 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:05.480 from the way fascist propaganda tends to talk about the 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:09.839 leader being like an embodiment of the people. But yeah, 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:12.599 there are some similarities, Like there's a bunch of stuff. 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:15.279 Syncretism is a big part go read your umburdo Echo. 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:18.520 Well, there's gonna be a bunch of emburdos in this episode, 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:22.080 but not echo. Yeah, but it turns out Umberto is 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.880 sort of the mic of Italy. Well, yeah, McLay is 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:29.960 probably the mic of Italy. But fascism is one of 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:33.159 the most convoluted and complex political ideologies to ever come about, 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:35.000 which is one of the reasons why you can kind 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:37.240 of point to anything and call it fascism and be wrong, 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:40.120 but also be like, you see where you're coming from 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:44.120 about it, you know, because it's not actually a simple ideology. 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:47.240 The more as I was reading this, because Italian fascism 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:51.240 in particular comes out of where they're right and the 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:55.120 left meet, and it is not a Well we'll talk 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:57.720 about this. I'm not going to get too deep into 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:01.080 the weeds of defining fascism today, but I want to 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:05.840 talk first about someone who one hundred percent, absolutely I 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:10.200 am certain, would have been fine with assassinating someone like 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:14.679 Benito Mussolini. About fifteen years before Benito Mussolini came to power. 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:18.880 That man who would have been totally fine with killing 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:22.920 Benito Mussolini was Benito Mussolini. 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:26.400 Oh because well yeah, yeah, I know that makes sense. 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:30.000 Yeah, to open up a can of orbs that the 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:33.120 Internet is not equipped to handle. Benito Mussolini, the founder 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:36.880 of the world's deadliest part right ideology, started on the left. 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:40.760 Yep, he sure did. Uh kind of adjacent to anarchism. 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:43.160 Yeah, we're going to talk about that. There's gonna be 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:49.120 a lot of it. Also started as a journalist, hooray. 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:53.760 Uh yeah, yeah, he was a socialist for a long 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:57.000 ass time, he was at least a second generation leftist. 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:00.760 Mussolini was born in the year eight teen eighty three 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:03.400 and he was the child of a blacksmith socialist and 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:07.400 a Catholic school teacher. He got named after a series 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:09.920 of socialists and leftists because of his father, and then 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:13.240 he was baptized Catholic because of his mom. He's named 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:17.360 Benito after Benito Juarez, the liberal president of Mexico, and 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:20.280 his middle names, which I forgot to look up in 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:24.360 Italian are Andrea and Amala Caare and these are after 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:29.600 two anarchists because his father was part of the Anarchist International, 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:32.880 which was an anti authoritarian socialist organization in the eighteen seventies. 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:37.840 I'm just going straight into the like the this is 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:41.119 like when I have to talk about eugenics on this show, 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:43.120 you know, whenever I have to talk about something that 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:45.640 was like really common and easily understood in the nineteenth century, 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:49.680 that makes no sense in the twenty first century. Italian 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:53.000 nationalism is really intertwined with the left, and it's really 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:54.200 intertwined with anarchism. 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:57.800 Yeah, and that, I mean it makes sense when you're 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:01.280 coming out of a world well not very long before 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:05.840 this period, Italy had been fucking Habsburg property. Much of 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:10.360 Italy at least had been Habsburg property, right, And when 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:12.680 all of these things that we now just see is like, well, 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:15.600 obviously Italy's a country, obviously Croatia is a country. When 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:18.760 they're all the property of some guy in his inbred family, 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:21.600 it's a lot less weird that it's a left wing 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:23.600 position to talk about nationalism. 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:30.640 Yeah, totally. Benito Mussolini never did really roll with the anarchists. 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:34.000 He kind of wanted to at different points. When he 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:37.360 was a socialist, he was firmly in the authoritarian socialist camp, 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:41.280 but he studied a lot of anarchist theory. He remained 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:45.040 friendly with anarchists. He was either dating or just friends with. 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:49.080 I've read both the anarchist orientalist poet named Leita Rafanelli. 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:53.400 He translated two of the anarchist Peter Kropotkin's books from 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:56.640 French into Italian. And because yeah, he was journalists, he 0:08:56.640 --> 0:09:00.479 read newspapers and kind of if you were a polytical 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:02.360 person in the nineteenth century, if you were like a 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:04.360 political leader, your thing was that you were a journalist. 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:06.199 Your thing is that you ran a newspaper. 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:09.120 Yeah, I mean it's the same. It's the same. Reason 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:12.200 is that with the generation coming up and the next 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:14.480 generation are all going to get their starts on TikTok 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:17.280 and Twitter, and like we're already seeing this on the right, right, 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:19.480 I mean in the left to a degree. You know, 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:23.680 it's because that's totally that's not the journalism. Tweeting is not, 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:26.560 or making TikTok is not journalism. But journalism wasn't what 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:29.160 we would consider journalism back then. It was just the 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:31.320 best way of getting propaganda to the masses. 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:35.319 Yeah, and it was Yeah, you wrote polemics, and propaganda 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:37.840 just literally meant propagating ideas. If you had an idea 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:39.560 and you wanted to tell people about it, you would 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:45.480 propagandize the idea. So Mussolini, the thing that's going to 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:47.439 come up throughout this week's story is that he's clearly 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:51.640 into authoritarianism, right, But there's something he liked about the anarchists. 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:54.720 He liked their courage, he likes their commitment, and he 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:58.240 liked action. You know, he was he wasn't the kind 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:00.679 of guy who wanted people to win around and talk 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:03.600 about things. He wanted people to go out and do things. 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:07.199 He also, for a long time shared their opinion that 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:10.400 killing autocrats was just fine. 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:14.679 I mean, look, there's a vin diagram. We do may 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:16.240 not like to say it, but like, there's a Vinn 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:21.280 diagram at points between me and Mussolini's life right now, Totally, 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:26.360 I'm not against killing early twentieth century autocrats theoretically. 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:29.440 Right, yeah, totally. Yeah, if we had a time machine, 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:32.360 we would feel justified in going back and killing absolute 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:34.520 monarchs from the nineteenth century and earlier. 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:37.280 Look, if I could go back in time and stab 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:39.080 the King of Italy, I would try to. 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:44.000 Well, that's going to bring us to this week's first assassin. 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:45.880 Is it the guy who stabbed the King of Italy? 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.600 I actually can't remember whether this guy stabbed or shot him. 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:52.240 This is the first Okay, this is the only successful 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:55.200 assassin we're going to talk about for a while. But 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.800 he shaped a lot of Italy's politics for a long time. 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:03.200 And that man's name was Gaetano Bresci. He was a 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:05.800 weaver from Italy who emigrated to the US in the 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:09.760 nineteenth century to Patterson, New Jersey. And it's kind of 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:13.800 funny because there's all of these different hidden, secret anarchist 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:16.920 strongholds of the past. I don't normally think about New 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.800 Jersey when I think about anarchism, but yeah, Patterson, New 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:26.000 Jersey very strong Italian anarchist scene. The next little bit, 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:27.480 because it's been a little while since I've looked up 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:29.080 Gatana Brescia. I used to write about him a lot, 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:30.640 So I'm kind of going into a little bit story 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:32.400 mode when I talk about Katana Bresci. I'm gonna have 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:34.640 more direct sources for the rest of the rest of 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:37.160 the people I'm gonna talk about. So everyone knows Katana 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:39.880 Breshi was hanging out New Jersey with his Irish wife, Sophie, 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:45.160 which is a good name, I agree, right, yeah, and 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:48.599 his two daughters, and she's gonna be all right in 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:49.000 this story. 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:52.760 Cool, yeah, okay, cool, don't bring the name down. 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:57.160 Yeah, no, no, she's great. No, no negative notes on Sophie. 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:00.600 In eighteen ninety eight, there are these food riots in 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:03.600 Italy and the government was like, well, a specific general 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:05.920 is like, why don't we just murder the entire crowd 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:10.520 that's rioting, And so they did that, and we will 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.040 think food riots. They usually think like, oh, everyone like 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:15.480 lost their mind and was running around and burning things 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:18.080 or whatever. These were organized strikes that were met with 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:21.840 lethal force. At least eighty protesters and two soldiers were killed. 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:26.560 Jesus and so King Umberto the first what did he do? 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:29.640 And everyone at the time was like, oh, the king 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:32.160 is the true you know. A lot of like populism 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:33.960 is based on the idea that the government's bad, but 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:35.559 the king's good, you know. 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:38.400 And this translates to fascism too, right during the Third Reich, 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:40.400 there was always this idea that like, if only Hitler 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:44.480 knew right about the worst Nazi policies. Yeah, yeah, this 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:47.560 is the same thing with the czar. Yeah yeah, no, totally. Yeah. 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:49.640 We see this again and again, and so I think 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:52.240 everyone was kind of expecting Umberto to come in and 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:56.400 be like, well, you probably shouldn't have done that, right, Oh, 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:58.000 I did promise you more than one mburdo and this 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:00.000 is one of them. There'sn be another one, probably on Wednesday. 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:05.040 But what i'mburda the first did is awarded the guy 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:09.000 who ordered the massacre a medal of honor, and Gatano 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:13.280 Bresci he didn't like that. He was living in New 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:16.240 Jersey with Sophie. He'd started an anarchist paper with some folks, 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:17.840 and he'd put up a fuck ton of money to 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:20.840 start that paper. It is like two hundred bucks at 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:24.040 the time, which is like several thousand dollars now. He 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:26.120 didn't want anyone else to get in trouble for what 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:30.120 he decided to do, so he didn't tell anyone. He 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:32.800 didn't tell Sophie. He just told her he had to 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:34.960 go deal with some stuff, like family stuff in Italy. 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:38.599 He didn't tell his comrades. He went into the newspaper 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:40.360 and said, hey, all that seed money I put in, 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:42.960 I need it back now. And they were like why, 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:45.200 and he was like, the not your business, give me 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:47.200 my money back. And so everyone kind of thought he 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:50.000 was a sellout and he was just like getting his 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:53.560 money to go fuck off, right. Everyone thought he left 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:55.800 the movement. But he got his money back and he 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:57.880 bought two things. He bought a Smith and Wesson and 0:13:57.920 --> 0:13:59.440 he bought a one way ticket to Paris. 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:03.880 That's a song. That's a warren Zevon song right there, 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:06.920 Smith and Wesson in a one way ticket to Paris. Excellent. 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:11.000 And the king is going to die and unlike a 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:13.320 lot of would be assassins that we've talked about on 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:17.880 this show BRESHI practiced with the revolver. 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:20.600 Which is always key. Yes. 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:25.120 Yeah, he made his way probably to Rome. He made 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:27.600 his way to Italy. He spent two days scouting out 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:29.400 the area where he knew the king was going to be, 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:33.760 and then on July twenty ninth, nineteen hundred, he went out. 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:36.160 He got some ice cream. I think he had lunch 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:38.080 with like a stranger and just hanging out and he 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:41.400 was like, you're gonna remember me guy, And then he 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.280 waited for Umberto to come through, waiting in the crowd 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:46.040 that was all there to cheer on their you know, 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:51.760 glorious leader, and he shot Umberto to death. The crowd 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:55.480 immediately grabbed him. Gaetano said, I did not kill Umberto. 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:58.200 I have killed the king. I have killed a principal. 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:05.840 Hell oh that's a good line. That's a good line. 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:10.360 Back home in New Jersey, his anarchist friends were like, oh, 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:12.520 I guess we judged him wrong, and they started a 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:15.040 fund to look after his kids and support his family. 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:18.680 His wife came to Italy and testified to his good 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:22.200 character in court. His whole family was like arrested in 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:25.680 an investigation into conspiracy, but eventually everyone was let go 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:31.640 and Italy under a king was actually had a more 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:35.040 fair criminal justice system than the United States does today. 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:38.160 They didn't have the death penalty. Mussolini's going to bring 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:41.840 that back later, so he gets life in prison. He 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.120 was held in solitary confinement. He had one hour a 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:48.200 day of exercises, like feet were like manacled to the floor. 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:52.000 They didn't treat him great. Less than a year later 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:55.520 he was found hanging in his cell, and modern historians 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:57.880 are recentably certain he was murdered. At the time, everyone's like, nah, 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:03.760 I just killed himself. Interestingly enough, this assassination didn't bring 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:07.280 in sweeping reactionary forces or anything like usually people are like, ah, 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:09.440 you killed the king and something worse is going to happen. 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:14.840 This changed things, but it the existing like kind of 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:18.880 leftist government stayed in power, and things kind of chugged along. Okay, 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:21.200 it didn't even lead to they like cracked down on 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.400 the anarchist movement, but they didn't come through and destroy it. 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:28.040 It did lead to more international cooperation between law enforcement. 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:31.240 When I first started dreaming up this show years ago, 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:34.360 it was kind of in a different context and I 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:36.240 wanted to talk about anarchist history and I was like, 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.040 you know, they literally invented international policing to stop us. 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:41.840 Why are all of our books boring? Has been my 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:46.960 like go to tagline because they did. International policing exists 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:50.120 because of trying to stop the anarchist movement. Because yep, 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:53.560 nothing gets people to work together. Like like when people 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:57.080 go around and kill like poor people, everyone's like, oh, 0:16:57.280 --> 0:17:01.840 that sucks whatever. When people go around and kill kings, 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:05.120 Kings work together to make sure that that stops. 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:08.879 Yeah. No, kings are great at like really union behave 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:11.560 they really work like unions royalty. 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:15.400 Yeah, when when someone comes for them as a class, 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:16.359 they band together. 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:18.080 Yeah. 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:23.280 One person who defended Gaetano Breshi doing a little king 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:26.480 murder was a man by the name of Benito Mussolini. 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:30.840 His fellow socialists were claiming Bresci was crazy for having 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:34.879 killed the king, right. Mussolini said that tyrann aside was 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:41.320 quote the occupational hazard of being a king, which I 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:41.760 don't know I. 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:49.520 Mean talking about occupational hazards. Yeah, I feel confident saying 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:51.680 that being a king is a pre existing condition. 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:58.320 Yeah, yeah, totally. But what isn't a pre existing No, 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:03.119 but what else we're obliged to do is play ads 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:16.680 for you now, Yeah, like these ones and we're back. Now, 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:21.040 this might shock you, Robert, did you know Mussolini didn't 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:22.040 stay leftist? 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:27.680 Really? Now? I thought you were talking about Benny Mussolini, 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:30.240 the man who invented the three day weekend. 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:35.520 Well, I was reading a whole bunch on on that 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:39.840 website X about how actually the fascist or socialists and leftists. 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:44.240 You're, of course referring to the website that just plays 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:46.560 a looping video of the song X gonta give it 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:48.520 to you. That's where I get all of my historical 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:52.400 information about anarchists in the early nineteen hundreds as well. Yes, 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:54.040 uh huh, yeah. 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:56.760 My ex feet is certainly playing looping videos of something 0:18:56.840 --> 0:19:03.000 right now. And so Mussolini was kicked out of the 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:07.639 Socialist Party because he supported interventionism, he supported Italy fighting 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:11.280 in World War One, and along the way he started 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:15.480 developing his theories on fascism, which was basically, what if 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:20.200 you took revolutionary socialism and then replaced it with revolutionary nationalism. 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:24.800 Instead of class solidarity, you had national solidarity. What if 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:27.119 you made all of the poor people suck up to 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:30.879 the rich people and then defend the nation as a concept, 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:35.119 the leftist trappings and some of the leftists strategies, but 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:38.640 with right wing goals, because at the time, right wing 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:41.080 was just like the status quo. Right if you defend 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:43.920 like the monarchy or whatever, your right wing, so there's 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:47.320 nothing really revolutionary about it. But fascism was like, no, 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:49.400 but we want the revolution and we want to feel 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:52.440 cool and edgy, but we also want to we really 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:55.159 like the taste of boots, and so we're going to 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:59.119 become fascists and invent this new ideology. For a few years, 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:01.639 a lot of politics in Italy was happening in the streets, 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:04.720 fascists versus anti fascists fighting it out, and for a 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:07.760 good several years Mussolini tried to make common cause with 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:11.359 the anarchists, specifically to join him against the socialists and 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:14.159 the communists. After all, this is the period where the 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:17.720 Bolsheviks and Russia were murdering anarchists on Moss and so 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:20.600 some folks there was a chance that Mussolini was even 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:23.280 going to go anarchists during this time. I actually don't 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:25.280 buy it, but I read one person making this argument. 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:28.680 He actually risked alienating his base with how much he 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:33.600 appreciated the anarchists interesting because his base was like, no, 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:35.320 those are the people we just go fight in the streets. 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:41.760 But Mussolini kind of admires their commitment, right, and the 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:46.840 anarchists don't want him. Mussolini said, quote, we are always 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:49.240 ready to admire men who are willing to die for 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:53.000 a faith they believe in selflessly. And this is him 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:57.520 contrasting the anarchists to the cowardly socialists. The anarchists, in 0:20:57.560 --> 0:20:59.560 so many words, told him to eat shit and die, 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:03.360 refuse his overtures again and again, and soon enough they're 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:06.160 going to try really really hard to just outright kill 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:09.879 this man. The most famous Italian anarchist then and now 0:21:10.080 --> 0:21:13.280 is this guy named Erico Malatesta. He's popped into a 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:15.480 bunch of our stories on the show, like when comrades 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:17.520 got him to Argentina by smuggling him in a crate 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:20.560 of sewing machines, and then he helped the Baker's Union 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:22.800 there become the most radical union in that country and 0:21:23.000 --> 0:21:25.159 the model that all the other unions rush to follow. 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:27.760 And how today in Argentina there are still pastries named 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:31.360 by the anarchist Bakers, like little books and little bombs. 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:35.520 I really like Malatesta. He's always in and out of jail. 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:37.480 He's an older fellow now, I think he's in his 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:40.840 sixties at this point that we're talking about. And while 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:43.359 he's in prison in Italy, there's a huge campaign to 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:47.880 free him, and who supports that campaign but Benito Mussolini, 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:51.080