The empire in the ideology of the Blackshirts and the Blueshirts: a comparative study

Abstract

This article addresses imperialism in the fascist movements in Europe between the world wars, focusing on Italy’s Partito Nazionale Fascista and Spain’s Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista. It analyses how the leaders and intellectuals of Italian and Spanish fascism developed and incorporated this theme into their ideological universe. It also seeks to understand if the empire was a logical derivation of the nationalist ideology and to identify the foundations of imperialist discourse. This study contributes to filling a historiographical gap, as, although there are several comparative works on the dictatorships of Mussolini and Franco, comparative analysis of the fascist parties in the two regimes are lacking.