The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1186: The Life and Thought of Oswald Mosley w/ Thomas777 - Part 4

Episode Date: March 13, 2025

66 MinutesPG-13Thomas777 is a revisionist historian and a fiction writer.Thomas and Pete continue a series exploring the life and work of British Union of Fascists founder, Oswald Mosley.Thomas' SubstackRadio Free Chicago - T777 and J BurdenThomas777 MerchandiseThomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 1"Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2"Thomas on TwitterThomas' CashApp - $7homas777Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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by the Central Bank of Ireland. If you want to support this show and get the episodes early and ad-free, head on over to freeman beyond the wall.com forward slash support. I want to explain something right now if you support me through Substack or Patreon, you have access to an RSS feed that you can plug into any podcatcher, including Apple, and you'll be able to listen to the episodes through there. If you support me through Subscrib Star, Gumroad, or on my website directly, I will send you a link where you can download the file and you can listen to it any way you wish.

I really appreciate the support everyone gives me. It keeps the show going. It allows me to basically put out an episode every day now, and I'm not going to stop. I'm just going to accelerate. I think sometimes you see that I'm putting out two, even three a day. And yeah, can't do it without you.

So thank you for the support. Head on over to freeman beyond the wall.com forward slash support and do it there. Thank you. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekino show. Thomas is here and we're going to continue the series on Mr. Oswald Mosley. How you doing, Thomas? I'm going well.

Thanks for having me, as always. There's a critical aspect of British fascism that tends to be neglected. The UK and Japan, both, interestingly, there was in a, in the later Shoa era Japan's the Japanese Empire's economic profile it wasn't

the internal situation wasn't configured anything like the UK despite I mean superficial parallels between like monarchy or something if you want to draw such conclusions like some of these like midwit court historians do

but they their financial system proved more robust than some, but there was still some pretty catastrophic effects. So like in 1929, the UK didn't end up like Germany and their structural unemployment wasn't as bad as the United States, but there was some pretty catastrophic problems. And people forget the UK went off the gold standard.

There was this mutiny, like an out-and-out Royal Navy mutiny. because both officers and enlisted saw their pay cut by something like 25% in real terms. Okay. And it was explained that, well, these are austerity measures. And the leadership element of the Royal Navy, I mean, obviously the direct line to, not just to the crown, but to the prime minister. and they were trying to give all these assurances, but, you know, to no avail. And that kind of thing is a way of catching fire proverbially.

I mean, that's what in the, I mean, that's what happened in the final days of the Great War in the German Empire. Okay. And the Royal Navy had outsized clout for obvious reasons, the people who know the culture or the UK. So this was pretty catastrophic. Mosley, the way he came to fascism, you know, we talked a lot about his class origins, being discreetly congruous with that sort of trajectory.

You know, and I make that point a lot in my own work product and stuff because this idea that it was opportunistic or cynical is assinine because nobody would have taken on that kind of rogue's position if he didn't believe in it and plan on seeing it through. despite the consequences. But, you know, Mosley also, he was a genuine threat of the working man. And he had, like, he had an integralist view of what, you know, of what progressive politics should look like. And something else to keep in mind, too, one of the reasons why, especially in the UK, like, everybody was a Keynesian, like right and left and everything in between. The reason people were susceptible to that error is because the entire global financial system, NASA, does it may have been in comparative and absolute terms, had completely collapsed. And these uncertainties couldn't just be allowed to resolve themselves over the next decade or two decades. There would have been, you would have been just capitulating to revolutionary conditions.

and had there not been an out-in-out communist revolution, there would have been like a total collapse of state institutions such that the confidence of the body politic would have evaporated and people would have resorted to self-help in ways that would have culminated in a literal anarchy. And even guys like Schumpeter, who was, you know, I believe that Schumpeter's business cycles is like the academic rebuttal to Keynes.

Shumpeter was no kind of demand cider, okay, like, at all. Quite the contrary. But even he favored one-time shock therapy, you know, because he was commissioned to try and help resolve the American situation early on before he became persona on Grotto with the new dealers. You know, and he favored, you know, like an infusion of

about $5 million. which I can't give the exact figure adjusting for inflation, but that was a tremendous amount of money in 1929. He favored like a shock therapy flooding of a currency markets with public funding. It's like a one-time event that would try and that would sort of stop. or at least mitigate the deflationary spiral. Okay, so everybody, there was not a single person who had like a lazy, fair view at this point. And you really couldn't.

And in Schumpeter's view, he said, look, like, you know, the, yes, there will be corrective structural features in coming decades, but the political system won't abide that. So it doesn't matter if that's, you know, incorrect in terms of pure macroeconomics. that was a bit of a digression, but it was essential to understand the political situation in the UK. So what in real terms of what this led do was the emergence of the national government in the United Kingdom. And this was basically unprecedented. And again, the economic slump, while not as catastrophic in the UK, it was the most, severe it had ever been in history. A key figure that kind of compromised confidence in the government in the immediate aftermath of

the immediate aftermath of the 1929 crash, Philip Snowden, first Viscount Snowden. He was the minister of the exchequerque. and um which for a practical purpose that's like a cross between like a cabinet position at the head at the head of the treasury as well as um it being like chairman of the federal reserve if such things existed then you know he was basically the chief like financial officer of the crown you know and he uh he he was uniquely like labor interests had a unique sympathy for him okay because he he kind of built his uh reputation as a rhetorition and and sort of a dynamic figure with these denunciations of capitalism and a kind of encyclopedic knowledge of uh ready for huge savings we'll mark your calendars from november 28 to 30th

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It was just that. It was knowledge of elaborate trivia. And he was the first, Chancellor of the Exchequer who represented the Labor Party. But he broke with what was official labor policy in 1931, vis-a-vis.

austerity measures and he got expelled from the party and then later that year labor was crushed by the national government coalition um and he was succeeded as a chance of the exchequer by neville chamberlain interestingly um i think i think chamberlain would have eventually become prime minister anyway but um it was the crisis situation that really sort of leapfrog Chamberlain into the role.

But at the helm of the national government coalition was McDonald, James McDonald, James Ramsey McDonald, he went by Ramsey McDonald. He's kind of a forgotten prime minister and that's

a major blind spot even of a lot of revisionist. not just court historians because he was fundamentally important. McDonald had been one of the founders of the labor party along with Kear Hardy and Arthur Henderson. And he had been a staunch opponent to the Great War, and he never wavered from that perspective. And he based,

basically he's the one he was able to break ranks with labor in doctrinal terms in the wake of the Invergarden mutiny which is what I just referenced at the outset

of this discussion but you know and he he formed and he also he was able to court the Tory the Tories who defected to the national coalition because he promised to carry out austerity measures

that would defend and protect the gold standard so it would survive as like the basis of monetary policy, which failed, and that's one of the things that took down Ramsey's government. but the phraseology that he employed in 1931 in calling for general election was he said I need a I need to quote doctor's mandate to fix this economy you know and again like people are going to look at that as they go that's just typical like interventionist Keynesian socialism like yeah it is but you can't consider this you know in in like 1960s or 70s or 80s terms or today's terms

you know, I think McDonald would have advocated that anyway just because of his understanding of economics or misunderstanding, if you will. But to say there was a fertile ground for

those kinds of proposed administrative remedies to macroeconomic frailies. It doesn't even begin to describe it. It was a totally different world. And in

information awareness and the ability to manage data at scale in real time, that has totally and completely changed everything in terms of fiscal policy, economic planning, consumer confidence, the trajectory of money, the way people approach stocks and capital investments, like everything. Okay, it's like comparing mathematics by advocates to mathematics by like a 90s. 60s supercomputer if you'll allow an imperfect metaphor. But this was the backdrop that Moseley was dealing with. And he, you know, he was about the youngest parliamentarian, save a Phenian candidate who was boycotting the commons, you know, when he began, when Moseley began his political career. you know he he was kind of perfectly

Mosy I mean he was kind of perfectly situated to represent like a revolutionary tendency that was at the same time patriotic you know um Mosey started talking right around this time

he had a a more than casual friendship of the HG Wells and um he started talking about corporatism and he said, look, the only chance of successful progress in this country and really the only way we're going to salvage the United Kingdom, salvage Britain, not just as a society that's not wrecked by class war and that retains an integral culture and moral consensus. But like the only way that Britain is going to endure as a world power, you know, is we've got to find a way to cooperate with, you know, the kind of, the kind of,

top intelligency of big business um wells uh interestingly one of his lesser known works these days it's uh it was like a novella you'd probably describe it in terms of length and and and sort of narrative um structure it's called the autocracy of mr pelham and um it's basically sort of like the like an anglo-saxon version of citizen Kane but it's about this fascist political leader who's kind of like an anglophone Mussolini and um it's really it's interesting you know and this is going to become significant in a moment in terms of what we describe it as far as this like temporal snapshot of Mosey's career as well as the European situation Mussolini at this point was viewed as a heroic individual, and people like them.

You know, that's why some years later, the Four Powers Pact, which when ultimately, like, the signatories put pen to paper, figuratively and literally, the substance of it had been gutted by redaction. but Mussolini was viewed as this dynamic savior of Italy and a man who was like on the cusp of the new political theory and praxis and Italy was an important country then you know like I'm not trashing Italy I think Italians are great and I think Italy is an awesome culture

but Italy had they were far more significant, not just in power political terms, but in cultural terms, you know, like, a lot of, trends, like, emerged from there, kind of like the way, kind of like the way people looked at the UK in the 60s, you know, which was kind of like the last gas, but like, the UK is like cultural relevancy on the world stage. Okay, like, in political terms, like, that's kind of people view to Italy. And this was augmented by the fact that on the, continent, but especially in Italy.

Like the arts and cultural product had this outsized impact on politics and vice versa. You know, so the fact that these like died in the wall like Anglos as well as

as well as some of these on the other side, some of these Irish Catholic and Thainian types like looked at Mussolini as as like a heroic like man. you know like a man's man and and and the kind of the kind of um the kind of revolutionary you who can reconcile you know the the the the class war um crisis you know that there wasn't like

moose that wasn't just like um as g wealth and uh and moseley being a couple of of eccentric. That was a not uncommon thought or sentiment. And George Bernard Shaw was another figure in this kind of early Mosy Milloo. And I made the point a lot. And the guy who wrote, there's this interesting academic. I think he was at University of Vermont. He's the guy who wrote this really good biography of William Pierce.

that peers collaborated on. It was called Fame of a Dead Man's Deeds. I believe the guy's name is Robert Griffin. Ready for huge savings? We'll mark your calendars from November 28 to 30th because the Liddle Newbridge Warehouse Sale is back. We're talking thousands of your favorite Liddle items all reduced to clear.

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falks wagon financial services arland limited subject to lending criteria terms and conditions apply Volkswagen financial services are limited trading as cooper financial services is regulated by the central bank of ireland but uh griffin wrote a really good book about british fascism and he talked about how um george bernard shaw was an essential cultural figure in that milu and he was and people totally misunderstand this. I don't know if it's deliberate because they don't want to credit an important literary giant with

having anything to do with fascism. I don't know if it's just ignorance. But, you know, like man and Superman, which we'll get into in a moment, like the stage play, that's both like an Eichian terrible, but

it also is like a political metaphor in defense of fascism. Okay? And Shaw was Shaw directly behooed Young Mosley

he said look you've got to break with labor you've got to break with the labor party and you've got to start a new movement you know it and he's like you can't

you've got to avoid the you've got to avoid the impulse to moderate or to compromise like McDonald did you know and this was a McDonald's on his way out he's like that didn't that didn't save the prime minister it's not going to save you either but also obviously like shaw's sensibility was one of extreme vitalism and historical situatedness so we you know he's like we this is something

that's that transcends like parliamentarism and anything like that um Shaw later stepped back from involvement in party politics, oblique, or otherwise. But I see no evidence that he ever changed his mind. You know, and, but that's, that's an essential influence, even more so than some of these, what's that? Can I interrupt? But, yeah, most people would relate Shaw and Wells more to the Fabian Society. I mean, H.C. Wells' four volumes set. I read his four volumes set on the history of man. And it's very, it's almost like a progressive Bible.

Oh, yeah. And Wells wasn't any kind of fascist. But I think Shaw basically was. you know um but the one of the reasons why the communists were always saying that fascism is just like a crisis modality of capitalism and that's why it's so insidious and it's hijacking the labor movement and poisoning the minds of the proletariat um there there there's a reason why they that was such a grave area of concern and why it like stirred their hostility so much because fascism was what a lot of people

in part probably subconsciously wanted to see develop but they didn't have the conceptual vocabulary yet to describe it but they could identify it when they saw it and especially in the UK the roots of this kind of like toxic

secularism was already like well underway. So, you know, if you were part of like polite society and you're going to like a bide bourgeois convention about what's morally appropriate, well, you're

any kind of radical or dynamic ideas you have, you're going to you're going to suggest that those energies be mitigated by appeals that. utopian socialism and garbage like that. But Wells, I don't think Wells was particularly political. I think Wells, he obviously read a lot of Carlisle,

and he had a belief in messianic personages in history, and he thought hero worship was a good thing. And he liked Mussolini, and a lot of left-wingeres like Mussolini. But, I mean, some of them for half-baked reasons, and for a thing, you know, for ill-understood, on grounds of ill-understood, you know, concepts and incomplete understandings, but a lot of them who were sophisticated like Mussolini for reasons that aren't inconsistent with, you know, the core of that ideological culture.

So that's important to keep in mind. And already at this time, Mosley's enemies were talking about him as like, the English Hitler you know which was something of a a backhanded compliment because Hitler at this point was what was

killing it you know 1929 was the real breakthrough you know but you know so Mosley this all this is this culminated

and Mosley establishing the new party. Literally, he called it the new party. Mosley and his first wife, who also at that time, was a member of parliament. And they were joined by a cadre of labor rights who defected. And mostly was able to court their loyalty by the dissemination

it can't be known as the Moseley memo. It was basically capitalizing how we talked about a minute ago, this enthusiasm for Mussolini that was born of a belief in the need for like an interventionist restructuring of the economy and

a belief that an nascent globalized economy you know variables could not be left to uncertainty awaiting structural correction because it would lead to one tragedy of the commons after another you know

the um people like the nunzio and Ft Mirionetti among British society and literary circles. They were respected. Like literate people read them and admired their output. You know, Shaw himself around this time, he said that Mussolini exemplified true socialism more than any British laborite. I mean, part of that was probably he liked to be an iconoclass, but he wasn't wrong.

I mean, as it should be clear to anybody who is familiar with. the relevant lore and source material. And there was this kind of just like fixation on Caesarism at the time in the UK. There was a whole bunch of like pop history books that came out about the Roman Empire. There was this one popular historian named George P. Baker. He wrote this book called Sulla the Fortunate, The Great Dictator. there was another book he wrote on Hannibal there was a bunch of a popular biographies of Julius Caesar you know and they they virtually all of them contained these sorts of a polemic about the contemporary relevance of you know um of Caesarism and how like dictatorship is not this evil thing you know and how history, particularly crisis modalities they're in, you know, they select for, you know,

heroic personage is like rising to the occasion, you know, and, you know, the, you can't just, like, one of the problems, you know, the part of the malaise as well as part of the callousness, that's led to class war in the UK is just kind of like writing off the suffering of the, of the laboring classes as well. That's, that's just, you know, the tragedy of history. You know, that's just, you know, creative destruction, you know, where that's just, you know, corrective mechanisms mean that some people are going to, entire classes of humans are going to proverbially drown, you know, while others, you know,

swim and thrive. You know, so there was a much more organic kind of foundation. The emergence of a British fascism of like a true sort, because like we talked about last time, kind of the early iterations of British fascism. It was basically these out of touch Tories who they liked the anti-communism of Mussolini and the fascists.

And they like the pageantry and optics, but they didn't really know what the hell they were talking about. Or they were like Symbolton, like white racialists, like Arnold Lees, who were trying to extrapolate you know, like Darwinian

reductionist nonsense to you know to to power political affairs you know that but that that that kind of that kind of bullshit had largely been swept away by you know the climate of post

1929 for reasons like what I just enumerated or elucidated rather um so the new party it was um it's a sentence

he was brief and kind of meteoric and the foundation of what became the British Union of fascists were absolutely laid during this kind of nascent phase. It's December 6, 1930 that Mosley, he published an expanded and properly annotated version of the Mosley memorandum, which Mosley, as a mostly, And his wife, who was also a member of parliament, like I said, Lady Cynthia, and 15 of these defecting Waiver MPs signed off on. It was February 931, Mosey formally resigned from waiver. He lost a new party the following day, March 1st, 1931. Excuse me.

and most of these guys most these defecting labor rights sat in the House of Commons as independence a couple resigned because there's will become clear in hindsight this early kind of cadre that mostly built around himself with some exceptions some of these people weren't really committed

And even if they were, they didn't, they didn't really, they kind of viewed Moseley as trying to insinuate himself in like a kingmaker role and a spoiler element. And if that makes any sense. And they figured that, you know, we'll be able to reconstitute the government, like, within, you know, the parameters of what's feasible, you know, according to the political situation. according to what we want to accomplish in terms of, you know, repealing these austerity measures and creating some kind of corporate structure that will have permanent legs. That was not realistic for a reason, but that's also not what Moseley was trying to do. And I'll get into what I mean in a minute. What Moseley was able to do, he started being able to do.

he started being able to attract money particularly from some of the lesser nobility and most significantly from this guy Lord Newfield who was trying to carve out a presence in print media and Mosley

what he always coveted he knew that William Randolph Hearst was an admirer Mussolini I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but Moseley's objective was to capture a patron like Hearst. But what he got was about 50,000 pounds sterling from Newfield, which he utilized to launch a magazine called Action, which later kind of morphed into the British Union of Fascist newspaper. But as the new party got underway, there was an information blackout from the establishment.

So this was especially imperative. The new party produced a film. It was like one-half propaganda film, like one-half statement of their platform and core principles. It was edited by Harold Nicholson, who was a who was a, who was, he had his hands in print media and the newspaper and publishing industry as well as in the nascent film industry. You know, he was... Ready for huge savings? We'll mark your calendars from November 28 to 30th because the Liddle Newbridge Warehouse sale is back.

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And this film was actually very professionally done. But it was the censors banned it on grounds that it would, quote, bring Parliament into disrepute. And there was one, it was, the film was interspersed with like dramatic reconstructions. And, you know, staged scenarios with actual footage. And there was some film of some parliamentarians literally sleeping while Commons was in session. And that's what they focused on.

And they're like, this is a slanderous, you know, this is, this is a hit piece. on the Commons, you know, it's trying to bring the government to this repute, you know, which was obviously nonsense and basically without precedent, other than during wartime, you know, most importantly, what Mosey did at this time, he established a direct action militia. Later, they became the black shirts. um, colloquially, they were called the Biff Boys. Um, the captain of this militia was, um, this English rugby star named Peter Howard.

And, um, Moseley's notion was, you know, we've got, I mean, Moseley was kind of a roughneck character anyway. You know, um, that's Sanders, you know, he was known for brawling and stuff. Like, just for shifts and kicks. as well as to defend matters of honor. You know, he'd been a boxer until some of his, uh, superiors and, uh,

sort of, um, uh, mentors, like, advised him, you know, you, you, you should take up a gentleman's sport, um, like fencing. So that's what he did, but, you know, most he really did have like a thug element to him,

you know, and, uh, so, I mean, he, he, kind of stuff, but also it was essential. And he saw the writing on the

wall. And even at this time, he'd been watching what the Hitler government was doing. He was watching what the National Solis had been doing when they broke through to the

Reichstag. This was just before Hitler was made Chancellor, Reichs-Causler. But you know he realized that you know the least our problems are

going to be the fact that you know our movies aren't shown in the cinema and there's a blackout on on our affairs and our successes in in print media you know we're

we're going to have to fight it out in the street if we're going to be through like the national socialist did and like the fascists did. And like I said, although most of what the new party, most of its sociological kind of infrastructure was shed by the time they rebranded as the BUF, but the new party, the new party youth militia, you know, which became the black shirts, like that, that remains. the first electoral contest

was that it was for there was a by-election for Ashton under Lynn line because the MP had died in office. Alan Young who was an early Mosley accolite

stood against William Risdon and the new party had only a threadbare organization on the ground. Young pulled 15 or 16 percent, which effectively did split the labor vote and allowed a conservative MP to return to the commons, which could be viewed as mission accomplished,

because, I mean, that did force people to take the most organization seriously. but again even at this early stage mostly wasn't trying to position himself as spoiler and he wasn't the purpose of the new party it wasn't like the Dixie Crats or something who were

you know had in mind what Wallace was trying to accomplish I mean what Wallace accomplished was remarkable when I in the American system that was kind of a stroke of genius. So I'm not suggesting something punitive about that. But that's simply not what Moseley was trying to accomplish. The kind of critical event or juncture was when Mosley in a delegation of new party types went to Rome.

Mosley went to roam twice. He went in 1932 and 1933 and 33 and the both of these were

instrumental in the fortunes of what became the BUF as well as in Mosley's kind of personal development as a as a fascist. And at this time too

Mosley issued a statement and he said that he said that class war and particularly the situation of the communists and some of the affiliated trade union

movements he said that he said this was supposed to be an internal memo but it was it was leaked I think people speculate it might have been deliberately leaked by Mosley himself

I don't believe that but I there might even some like ledgered main on the side of the new party that just to kind of bring attention to the organization. But Molli was accused of welcoming revolutionary conditions because he said that he said that we need some sort of class war, at least the threat of it, to facilitate what he called a provocative

rather than tranquilizing effect. And he directly referred to the situation in Weimar and in Italy. And he was savaged in the mainstream press. You know, he was called an anarchist. He was called a communist. He was accused in an open session of the commons of, quote, cynically welcoming disorder as a way of publicizing his readiness to deal with red disruption, end of quote. Um, Mosey's rebuttal was, uh, he said, our long-term purpose needs to, quote, to be to take control at a revolutionary situation.

Which is absolutely correct. But, um, this, uh, made headlines quite literally, not just in the UK, but also on the continent. and this is also when he began openly within his inner circle and particularly in the way he addressed the new party

militia he started pulling out the National Socialist movement as the model organization in June 1931 he actually said to MS-Series, Major Thompson and Leslie Cummings to Germany, to liaise with national socialists, and to talk to SA cadres and galiters and whoever else he'd get an audience with

about, you know, the direct action methods employed, you know, under revolutionary conditions. and they actually visited the Brownhouse in Munich, you know, National Socialist headquarters. And this very much came from Mosley. The party had more of a committee structure. There wasn't the kind of fewer prinzip or equivalent, but Mosley controlled the party's funds. and ultimately, I mean, policy emanated from

from him and his pen. You know, so the, it's not as if he, like, fell under the influence of, like, at the time, like, some of his, like, well-intentioned, but misguided friends. And this kind of mythology endured, like, for decades for people thinking that this was, like, they were helping Mosley or his memory like oh he just fell into the influence of fascists you know that this

you know mostly was was misled i mean that that's nonsense i mean for all kinds of reasons that should be obvious but it but he wasn't he didn't come into the sway of some like nazi cadre or whatever like you know um whatever whatever whatever whatever some of these Tory types like admired and admire moseley like the claim. But that's also had the effect of, like Alan Young, you know, who'd stood for,

who'd challenged the by-election on the new party ticket. You know, he left the party immediately when it became clear that, you know, they were moving towards overt fascism. Beaverbrook said

correctly, He said any party that's going to challenge the establishment for the loyalty of the body politic, but especially, you know, like a fascistic element would require immense sums of money, but also like a base of true journalistic support. You know, and in Moseley's view, you know, raising money. Money is always a problem, but that's, but it's a problem that we remedied. Overcoming what he called, not incorrectly, the conspiracy of silence in media was the real issue. So, I mean, branding, I mean, no, I'm going to be wrong. Mose, he was a, he was a doctorate or fascist and kind of the purest sense, but he knew that,

Randolph Purr's, for example, had invested over a million dollars in Mussolini's cause early on just for the sake of disseminating the fascist position and facilitating the psychological effect of it being, you know, like a truly ubiquitous movement. You know, and in those days, like, print media was really the only game in town,

and, like, day-to-day electoral terms. You know, I mean, like, yeah, you visual media, nascent as it was, it had a huge impact. But that was expensive. It was infrequent. And, you know, you needed a, you needed, you basically needed, like, a newspaper that was already established. that would carry your propaganda needs. And the way the national socialist accomplished that was somewhat unusual.

But it was a very different media culture on the continent, and especially in Germany. Also, this isn't a discussion of the German situation, but it does need to be noted. You know, Hitler's barnstorming was something that made up for a lot of the, you know, a lot of these, a lot of these kind of shortfalls in,

in an active propaganda sector. You know, but like that wasn't, that wasn't feasible in the United Kingdom for a few different reasons. And also, like, the UK, it was really the first true kind of, like, newspaper culture in my opinion you know um like way more so than the united states although the united states it was even more so than on the continent but that's um this kind of a subject for

its own dedicated pod but um when uh when mosley actually when he visited rome for the first time in january 1932, he justified it to the party cadre as, you know, we need to study, you know, the modern fascist movement wherever it lives, you know. And he all, he intended on visiting, he intended on visiting the Soviet Union too, well, it never came to fruition. Because knowing as he did,

um, that, uh, you know, Mussolini spent a lot of time studying Leninist political warfare. The Soviet Union, as Stalin was truly kind of consolidating the political infrastructure, it wasn't really clear what the internal situation was

in the Soviet Union. But what was clear was that, you know, against all expectations and against all probabilities, you know, a revolutionary cadre structure without real support in the body politic at scale was able to conquer the largest country on this planet.

You know, just for context. But, and, um, and, um, and, um, and plus two, like Lenin had, there'd been a,

a weird kind of conceptual discourse within the communists and Mussolini like before in Mussolini's revolutionary

socialist days Lenin had viewed him as like the most potentially um if you

he viewed him as the revolutionary on the continent with the most potential Mussolini um and uh

interestingly Lenin believed that Mussolini had been corrupted by his experience at the front and that the adoption of the fascist party platform was both cynical

and pragmatic and owing to communist epistemic assumptions you know well you know Mussolini was co-opted by capitals you know because this is just you know a crisis modality of capitalism

And it's drawing upon symbolic psychology to, you know, to convince people that it represents a different tendency. When it's really, it's really just, you know, um, crisis mode capitalism under like a different, apparently fresh guys. But, um, Mosey was treated like a celebrity in Italy, which is, which is interesting. because Mussolini notoriously was not welcoming of people who were for all, you know,

pro-pranical purposes, like making Hajj to fascist Italy to, you know, pay homage to tell Duce or to try and glean some some esoteric knowledge of revolutionary ambition or something

or political soldiery. You know, but the Italians, I think, had a certain, the Italians and the English traditionally kind of respected each other, each respects the other for what they're not, for what they themselves are not. I think that's part of it, but

you know, it's also the key to just as Hitler recognized, you know, Mussolini was more overtly ecumenical

in ideological terms. I mean, Hitler was no German nationalists, quite the opposite. I mean, we've discussed that before. However, Hitler didn't view national socialism as some ideological paradigm

that was you know, universally applicable to, you know, world historical processes. You know, that's why, with the exception of the independent state

of Croatia, Hitler really didn't back you know, like national socialist movements, like outside of the core of the right. Mussolini believed in a fascist international, quite literally.

And there actually was like a fascist international conference. which I think is a really fascinating topic in 1935, I think. But be as it may, like, despite somebody congerously, like, Mussolini was notorious for snubbing, you know, fascist cadres and their leadership element when they'd come to visit. But Mussolini was treated, or mostly was treated like, you know,

like a, like a celebrity. in italy and um they uh interestingly too um and one of uh like muslinies or uh mozzi's biographies tend to fall back uh they're they're going to fall on one side of the other of this issue some people claim that mosie wasn't at all anti-semitic i mean i don't like that term but just for the sake of you know intelligibility um Italy, there were race laws that were basically reflected the Nuremberg laws that were passed later on, in part owing to a, I think, the brutalizing effect of the war, as well as the increasing influence of the Reich on their internal situation. So there wasn't this hard and fast

like racialism in Italy. But to say they weren't like anti-Jewish in political terms, I think is naive and just like incorrect. You know, Mosley had some prominent Jews

in his inner circle, at least in the new party days. You know, Mosley being like an avid boxing aficionado throughout his whole life. There's a well-trowy champion,

um, Saul Mendeloff. He fought under the name Kid Lewis. You know, like he was like an ethnic Jew and he and, he'd, he'd do security with, um, you know, with what became the black shirts,

you know, um, and, uh, he seemed very much to be on board with the program. He wasn't just doing it for money. or something on that order. Mostly never shied from the Jewish question later on. But he else never talked about it in biologically racialist terms. I think that owes the internal situation of the UK.

I don't think it owes any. emulation of Mussolini as as some sort of moral arbiter of of fascist ethics or something, but I just put that out there because I know what's going to come up, either in the comments or, you know, people are going to want to discuss it. I mean, it was fine. I'm not saying they shouldn't, but it was, um,

that was, uh, that was the true turning point, in my opinion. Um, I think by 1931, mostly was a fascist and all but name, but after, after the return from Italy, and obviously it was, you know, it was mere months, not years later,

that the BUF was, was consolidated, essentially by a, assimilating all the fascist elements that exhibited any viability and gameness in England and Scotland. Interestingly, one of the things that caused Molle's initial falling out with his national liberal fellows, was on the Irish issue and what he viewed as their you know, abject callousness towards the Irish

in Scotland many, if not most of the fascists of any significance fascist cadres they were arch loyalists they were very sectarian and um

Billy Fullerton um he was the he was a gangster and he was the original the original Billy Boys mob. You know, they were like a, they were a sectarian gang.

And he was a B-U-F partisan. So that led to kind of a delicate situation, which I think would have caused a real rift. had the BUF I mean the BUF's fortunes ultimately became in strictly bound up with that of the access and the German Reich for obvious reasons

in the Kingdom of Italy had had fascism endured in a counterfactual historical scenario it's an interesting question like how the matter of Ireland

and sectarian hostility would have played out but that's probably too kind of speculative and abstract but I think we're coming up on about an hour I promise we'll wrap it up in the next episode I hope

this was informative and entertaining to all the subs and not just dry and trivial but like I said this is subject near and dear to my heart in addition to being you know, very much in my, you know, very much kind of at the center of my research interest.

So, yeah, we'll reconvene in a few days. I'm going on vacation this weekend. I know you know that, but, um, I think I deserve a Thomas Cation. Like, I travel a lot, but, you know, I probably seem like I don't do much, like on these traveling jaunts. Like, I, I just saw, we just saw each other in Atlanta. Yeah, man, which was great.

Yeah, but, um, I'll, I'll, I'll be back Sunday night. and I'll be crossing paths with a bunch of the OGC guys, so I'll give them your best. Of course. Yeah, but yeah, we'll reconvene as soon as I get back, man. Yeah, I don't think anybody, any of the subs are going to complain about five episodes on Mr. Mosley. So do quick plugs. Yeah, for sure, man.

The best place to seek out my content is the substack. is real Thomas 7777.7.com. I'm a good kind of with my friend Rake who edited our movie. When I get back from Arkansas, we're going to release the movie. And I'm going to release Steel Storm 2. And not Steel Storm 2, I mean, in addition also. I've got plenty of Mindphaser Season 3 content that is on schedule to be released by weekly. moving forward, but I know there's been some delays in Steel Storm, and I want to keep people posted on the movie.

As soon as I get back, I'm going to decide the best way to upload it, like, in terms of what platforms, and I'm very excited, and I think people will really enjoy it. But I'm on social media. My alt is at capital REL underscore number 7, H-MAS-777. you can always visit my website. It's Thomas 777.com. But it's under construction. I mean, you can still access it and stuff,

but it needs work. And I've got a lot of my play right now, but that's going to get resolved too, I promise. But, yeah, that's, um, that's, uh, that's what I got. And, um, that's all not feeling great. So forgive me if I, I, forgive me if this was, West Codent than it should have been.

I don't think anybody I don't think anybody able to tell you we're sick. This was great. Okay, no, thank you. I appreciate that. Until episode five, thank you very much.

Yeah, thank you.