Joyce Lin - Research on L'Opera Nationale Balilla

Professor Olivia Gori
Group Work with Grace Miner
Fall 2024

L’Opera Nazionale Balilla was a fascist government organization for children that aimed to produce the new, future fascist Italian. The research included children’s organizations in general during this time period. Children’s activities were incredibly structured in their movements, contrary to our personal memories of playing as children.

In the drawing, we’re representing the children's movement in the colonie. And since we’re arguing that fascism was systemic, we’ve mapped the movements and activities on a daily loop. The continuous loop represents the children marching from activity to activity.

Starting with sleep. Eating. Church, where while they might have still practiced Christianity, fascist politics became a sort of religion centered around the Duce cult of personality. Morning exercises.

Climbing over a wall for fitness, tent building for military training, spelling duce with their bodies, swimming, beach-side class, heliotherapy which was emphasized overall as a method of cleansing the body and keeping it healthy. Segregated activities, in this case, boys are doing military training while girls are on the side making handcrafts. Playtime, where they aren’t explicitly dictated, but still play in a very geometric way.

From the research, the fascist system was designed to be applicable to all parts of life, of everyday life, which produced a compulsive practice of fascism which we can see in their movements.

This is what the movement looks like. The kids performing these exercises and marching everywhere, and even how they play, and its strangeness compared to kids today was very interesting.

The Balilla was one program of many formed to produce the new, future Italian. These programs saw children as mini adults who were a pure, blank slate to be molded. Towards the goal, the Balilla focused on physical fitness. For boys, this meant military training; for girls, this meant healthiness for childbearing and developing child-raising skills. It was all about creating compulsory fascist behavior in children as early as possible.

The Balilla started as a voluntary after-school program for teenage boys and expanded to a mandatory daily program for boys and girls of all ages. There were also colonie summer camps in the mountains or by the sea, to improve health). In addition to the Balilla were other welfare organizations, such that all parts of family life had some sort of organization or state-sponsored activities. While the state took care of the family to strengthen family ties, the amount of time spent with the state meant the individuals of the family were in reality deferring to the state. Kids were spending less time with the parents and family.

Despite our conceptions about how terrible, the Balilla was in the fascist government, there were many children that were enthusiastic and proud to be part of the parades and marches. In fact, under a YouTube video on Balilla colonie summer camps, there were comments that reminisce about their summers.

But what this all really means, is that fascism wasn’t a separate part of life, a separate subject. And that there were also children that didn’t enjoy the nationalist parades and patriotic songs. Yet, they still performed them, revealing how the system expects obedience. And revealing how very much fascism was embedded into everyday life, workplaces, schools, recreation, the home. As well as in everyday objects, like postcards, children’s school notebooks, board games and Christmas. Where Christmas was once an intimate, family activity, became appropriated by the fascist government. Instead of Befana, the friendly old lady, it was the Duce (Mussolini) giving out presents. And in order for a child to receive the present, the family had to perform public political allegiance, and so a family holiday became a political one.

These are felt dolls dressed in the Balilla uniform, usually coming together as a pair, and meant to be mock-marching as the mode of playing (you can see it in the arms). The way children play was dictated. Orderly group play was encouraged over individual or hyper-energetic play, and play spaces were designed to be big for groups and open for optimal adult supervision with patriotic materials like linoleum, which were hygienic because it was easy to clean. No dark colors, or heavy fabrics. Play spaces were not cuddly.

Casa del Balilla across Italy were defined by big, open spaces. This is the one in Arborea. The focus of each Casa del Balilla is the gym. This is the one in Arborea, and it also has a swimming pool and an outdoor field.