Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Controversies over Italian Fascism’s political placement


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. j⚛e deckertalk 03:11, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Controversies over Italian Fascism’s political placement

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This article is a "POV fork" of fascism, synthesis, and a copyright violation and is about a non-notable topic.

The author created the article after failing to insert text into the article on Fascism that said Benito Mussolini had spoken about a "century of the Left", rather than a "century of the Right" in the Doctrine of Fascism. Jane Soames's first edition of the book in English indeed used the word "Left", but the word used in the original Italian was destra ("right"). No secondary sources have been provided to explain the error. L.K. Samuels, in his article on which this article is based, claimed that the fact fascism is left-wing is "a dirty little secret that has received little attention." The purpose of this article is to correct that.

The article combines statements about fascism that could lead one to think it was left-wing. No attempt is made to use a reliable source that says anyone else has put these statements together and drawn the same conclusion.

Expanded versions of the article, called "Hitler and Mussolini: History’s Dirty Little Secret" can be found on L.K. Samuels' website.

TFD (talk) 23:07, 23 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete I agree totally with what is written above: this is a typical case of WP:POVFORK. I would like to add that together with this article, two more articles have been created at the same time, all rotating around the sentence "century of the left": one about Jane Soames, the translator of the Doctrine of Fascism, and another one (whose submission has been declined) about the translation of “The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism”. I would like also to point out that the “The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism”, which is cited here, is actually a book published for the first time in Italy one year after Soames`s translation (in 1935), and it bears the same words ("secolo della destra", ""century of the right")  as the part of Gentile`s and Mussolini`s article appeared on Treccani Encyclopedia and translated by Soames. Moreover, all the translations of the “The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism” later than 1935 which I could find (in English, French and German) have also the expression "century of the right". So, the idea that Mussolini had told Soames to replace ( NOT translate, since the translation is unique) "destra" ("right") with "left" is senseless, and goes against 80 years of historiography of Fascism: no Italian secondary source (De Felice, Gentile, etc.) never pointed out this alleged change of course of Mussolini which - if true - would have been of enormous importance. About the different interpretations of Fascism as ideology, they find already their place in the Fascism article. Alex2006 (talk) 07:12, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete. This could be better titled "Why my pet fringe theory is right and all of academia is wrong".  It's a polemic that masquerades as an encyclopedia article.  Fascism already covers this topic well, and we don't need a POV fork that introduces synthesis and fringe sources.  I'd love to write my own POV rant about fascism, but this obviously isn't the place for it.  Put it on a blog. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 08:49, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete per others' comments above and my own comments on the talk page. It's a blatant essay-style POV fork and in fact a variation on an entry that was actually declined at AFC but which was then posted in mainspace in a slightly altered form anyway.  N-HH   talk / edits  12:48, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Italy-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:58, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:58, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:58, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:58, 24 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Strong Delete Per nomination and per others' comments. This is an opinion piece. -- Jersey92 (talk) 04:52, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete as a content fork per . COI editing here and, inter alia, at L.K. Samuels and Jane Soames also probably needs looking at. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 14:26, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.