Italian fascist propaganda in Finland (1922-1933)

This panel focuses on Italian diplomacy and fascist propaganda in Finland. The Finnish “case-study” is useful to the analysis of Mussolini's twin struggle against Soviet communism and the increasing Nazi threat in the Baltic between the 1920’s and 1930’s. This work will analyse how Mussolini tried to put roots in Finland before Hitler’s rise. Organisations and groups like the Lapua Movement and the Carelian Academy, at least until the end of the 1920’s, were inspired by Italian fascism and the success of the “March on Rome” encouraged their hopes to take power in Finland. The ultimate failure of Finnish fascism has ensured the continued marginalization of fascism as a research subject in the Finnish academic tradition. Yet, as Roger Griffin suggests, studies of peripheral and failed fascisms can also contribute important insights for understanding both the ‘centre’ of fascism, as well as modern nationalist extremist movements. Fascism as an international political phenomenon cannot be understood from rigidly national interpretative frameworks.