The construction projects might be argued to make economic sense as make-work projects and infrastructure building, like the Autobahnen for instance (or the Hoover Dam elsewhere). But this would require a longer discussion for which I'm not prepared...

On another tack look at this Dux (Mussolini), 1930.


and


(Fede in Mussolini = Faith in Mussolini!)
These abstract and truly modernist representations would mean an immediate Konzentratzionlager in Germany for the authors, while they would be the way forward in Italy. Quite a different character in art.

Soviet art was also quite liberal, investigative, free to explore approaches. That is, before Stalinism's Socialist Realism clamped down on it.

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