YMMV / The Footprint of Mussolini

• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • Yes, there were many Italian fascists who opposed antisemitism and there were even Jews who joined the fascist movement (although they were a minority within it). ^note Initially, Mussolini's fascism movement was one that rejected the racial policies of the Nazis, as most Italians saw Jews as part of the Italian nation. OTL, Mussolini was mostly ambivalent toward Jews, and only embraced antisemitism in order to increase his ties with Nazi Germany.
  • Tolstoyism, the brand of Christian Socialism that post-Soviet Russia follows, really is a school of socialist thought that has long since fallen into obscurity in our history.
• Americans Hate Tingle: While the timeline is rather divisive among American readers, it had a far more negative reception among some Italian members of the site. A common criticism is that the timeline gives a massive dose of Historical Hero Upgrade and Historical Badass Upgrade to a dictator and an ideology that, in real life, was responsible for some of the darkest and most tragic moments in Italian history, to the point where an Italian reader accused the author of making errors regarding his characterization of Mussolini and his policies.
• Base-Breaking Character: The portrayal of Henry Wallace is among one of the more controversial points of the timeline. Readers either consider him a Well-Intentioned Extremist with a hatred for far-right tyranny in all its forms who's idealism tragically left him blind to Stalin's own brand of totalitarianism until it's too late, or just consider him a one-note Strawman simply as a result of his political beliefs. Those who believe in the latter are divided over whether Wallace's characterization was either due to his beliefs being misrepresented in both official and alternate histories, or was a deliberate character assassination on the author's part.
• Broken Base: Quite arguably one of the more polarizing timelines on AlternateHistory.com, considering its general premise, with a number of users on the site along with almost all alternate history and pop culture forums with a left leaning tilt such as Sufficient Velocity writing it off as overtly sympathetic to fascism. Some points of contention include:
  • The timeline's depiction of Fascist Italy and the fascist sphere is rather controversial, with some readers accusing the author of being too sympathetic in his portrayal of Mussolini and the other fascist dictators and outright legitimatizing some of their ideas, while other readers declare that the author does just fine portraying the Fascist bloc as ultimately villainous on their own right. A common criticism is that the Historical Hero Upgrade in some points seems to go too far, sometimes apparently ignoring the many crimes they were responsible for.
  • Is the preservation of European colonialism and/or influence in Africa a natural consequence of Fascists prowling the continent or does the Timeline just go out of its way to justify implausibly? Critics frequently cite many real life independence activists like Patrice Lumumba being hit by Historical Villain Upgrade as a reason for the latter, even if they're victims of circumstance rather than being worse than they were in reality.
• Common Knowledge: Many unfamiliar with the finer details of the timeline assume it's a story about Mussolini becoming a good guy, which is also the claim about the story spread by many of the timeline's detractors. This isn't true; while Mussolini does have a number of sympathetic moments and redeeming qualities and ends up doing a significant amount of good, he's A Lighter Shade of Black at best in terms of overall morality and sometimes comes off more like a full-blown villain, with the ethnic cleansing of Slovenia in particular.
• Complete Monster: Mao Zedong, leader of Red China during the Chinese Civil War, creates the brutal fanatical Red Guards as his guerrilla forces and orders them to massacre refugees from his regime. Desperate to not lose the war, Mao orders his population to melt their own steel to use it as building material and weapons, causing a famine that kills 40 million citizens. Unable to admit defeat, Mao orders a brutal suicidal offensive during a temporary ceasefire for the annual Qingming Festival. When the Nationalists reach Shanghai, Mao orders his men to turn Shanghai into a death trap where millions of soldiers are sent to die and anyone trying to escape is murdered, due to Mao's desire to traumatize his enemies and watch his men die, whilst he has sex with teenage girls. Betrayed by the USSR and his own Party and given to the UN, Mao's last words before his execution are "I should have invaded Russia."
• Funny Moments:
  • After taking power in North China, Jiang Qiang is less interested in managing affairs of state and more interested in making a series of horrible movies featuring an idealized version of herself (played by her, of course). She even inspires this timeline's equivalent of the term "Mary Sue".
  • There's also the German surrender and the Russians' resentment over Chuikov being on the edge and looking like a minor power due to diplomatic issues and personal conflicts. Patton can't be next to him because of Patton's dislike of the Russians, he can't be next to Rommel because the Soviets see him as a war criminal, he can't be next to Balbo due to Balbo being a Fascist, Dayan is angered by the Soviet Union's growing antisemitism, leaving only De Gaulle; as for Monty... Balbo: "No one could stand Montgomery. Myself and Patton took one for the team."
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: A fair chunk of the timeline's fans come from Eastern Europe, this is due to the Soviet Union being one of the main villains of the timeline and fact that the idea of Marxist-Leninist Communism as equally capable of mass genocidal atrocities as Nazism is a far more socially acceptable political belief in that part of the world than anywhere else due to the OTL atrocities and political repression carried out by the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact in Eastern Europe.
• Nightmare Fuel: This timeline has a lot of terrifying and disturbing content. For example:
  • When Horthy decides to have the Hungarian Jews deported to Italy rather than sending them to the camps, Hitler is furious. Not only does he have Horthy overthrown and executed, he orders an invasion of Italy just to kill the refugees, so terrible is his antisemitism. When the city of Ljubljana falls, numerous Italians and Jews are killed by the Germans and their Slovene collaborators.
    • Unfortunately, the Blackshirts’ reprisal against Ljubljana is worse. What they did basically amounts to a genocide of the Slovenes, razing much of the town, a point where even Hitler failed to do for much of Poland and Russia. And at the time, it was seemingly ignored by everyone.
  • The timeline really doesn't pull its punches when it comes to The Holocaust and its effects. When the Anglo-Jewish forces arrive in Auschwitz, they come across a pile of children's shoes and know exactly what it means, and how far the Nazis are willing to go for their Final Solution.
  • Two words: Operation Samson. One cannot stomach vivid descriptions of the effects of multiple nukes being landed on almost all of the UAR. Said descriptions range from poetic descriptions of the cities hit to gruesome descriptions of individuals affected by the strikes, including Aflaq’s death by radiation. This horrific scenario would probably be the closest to a global nuclear war as it gets.