Italian Fascism’s Soviet Enemy and the Propaganda of Hate, 1941-1943

Authors

Marla Stone, Occidental CollegeFollow

Abstract

In conjunction with the war against the Soviet Union which began in June 1941, the Italian Fascist regime promulgated a virulent brand of anti-communism and oversaw a campaign of hate-mongering propaganda targeted at its Soviet enemy. This propaganda produced to justify the war highlighted the Manichean struggle against the Soviet Union and the special horrors of the Soviet communist enemy. Using longstanding stereotypes about a Russian lack of civilization, 19th-century ideas about racially expressed biological difference, and more recent tropes about Bolshevik barbarism and immorality, official representations of Fascism’s historic enemy—the communist—put forward a racially degenerate, godless peril from the East bent on the destruction of Western civilization and on the desecration of the Italian family and the Catholic faith.

Recommended Citation

Stone, Marla (2012) "Italian Fascism’s Soviet Enemy and the Propaganda of Hate, 1941-1943," Journal of Hate Studies: Vol. 10, Article 5.
DOI: 10.33972/jhs.114
Available at: https://repository.gonzaga.edu/jhs/vol10/iss1/5

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.