The Blackshirts (Italian: camicie nere, CCNN, or squadristi) were Fascist paramilitary groups in Italy during the period immediately following World War I and until the end of World War II. Blackshirts were also known as the National Security Volunteer Militia (Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale, or MVSN).
The term was later applied to a similar group serving the British Union of Fascists before World War II and to members of a quasi-political organization in India.
Fascist logo
Inspired by Giuseppe Garibaldi's Redshirts[citation needed], the Fascist Blackshirts were organized by Benito Mussolini as the military tool of his political movement. The founders of the paramilitary groups were nationalist intellectuals, former army officers or members of the special corp Arditi, young landowners opposing peasants' and country labourers' unions. Their methods became harsher as Mussolini's power grew, and they used violence and intimidation against Mussolini's opponents.
The ethos and sometimes the uniform were later copied by others who shared Mussolini's political ideas, including Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, who issued brown shirts to the "Storm Troops" (Sturmabteilung) and black uniforms to the "Shield Squadron" (Schutzstaffel, also colloquially known as "Blackshirts", because they wore black suit-like tunics with brown shirts), Sir Oswald Mosley in the United Kingdom (whose British Union of Fascists were also known as the "Blackshirts"), William Dudley Pelley in the United States (Silver Legion of America or "Silver Shirts"), in Mexico the Camisas Doradas or "Golden Shirts", Plínio Salgado in Brazil (whose followers wore green shirts), and Eoin O'Duffy in the Irish Free State (Army Comrades Association or "Blueshirts"). "Blueshirts" can also refer to Canadian fascists belonging to the Canadian National Socialist Unity Party; And blue were, also, the shirts of the members of Falange Española, the party which ruled Spain during Franco's dictatorship. The paramilitary fascist Iron Guard members in Romania also wore green shirt.