Blackshirts

From Metapedia

The Blackshirts were Fascist paramilitary groups in Italy during the period immediately following World War I and until the end of World War II. The term was later applied to a similar group serving the British Union of Fascists before the War.

Inspired by Giuseppe Garibaldi's Redshirts, the Blackshirts were organized by Benito Mussolini as a military tool of his Fascist movement. The founders of the paramilitary groups were nationalist intellectuals, former army officers or members of the special corp Arditi, young landowners opposing peasants' and country labourers' unions. Their methods became harsher as Mussolini's power grew, and they used violence, intimidation, and murder against Mussolini's opponents. One of their distinctive techniques was force-feeding castor oil.

The ethos and sometimes the uniform were later copied by others who shared Mussolini's political ideas, including Adolf Hitler in Germany, who issued brown shirts to the Sturmabteilung and black uniforms to the Schutzstaffel (also colloquially known as "Blackshirts", because they wore black suit-like tunics with brown shirts), Sir Oswald Mosley in the United Kingdom (whose British Union of Fascists were also known as the "Blackshirts"), William Dudley Pelley in the United States (Silver Legion of America or "Silver Shirts"), in Mexico the Camisas Doradas or "Golden Shirts", Plínio Salgado in Brazil (whose followers wore green shirts), and Eoin O'Duffy in the Irish Free State (Army Comrades Association or "Blueshirts"). "Blueshirts" can also refer to Canadian fascists belonging to the Canadian National Socialist Unity Party.