Autocrats need to simultaneously ensure the continued support of regime loyalists and stave off revolutionary threats by opponents. Who will they privilege when apportioning economic development? Preliminary results from municipal-level historical data on fascist Italy's flagship agricultural development policy suggest ex-ante politically opposed locations received more resources when they credibly threatened collective action. Decomposing policy outcomes based on geo-morphological characteristics allows the study to focus on the socio-economic component of yield improvements. I then exploit exogenous variation in agricultural strikes due to anomalous rainfall to causally connect unrest to larger productivity gains. Suggestive evidence based on electrification and the location of radio infrastructure similarly indicates that other benefits were allocated to more threatening areas. The case suggests that local revolts against autocrats pay off in the short term but also deliver important information on the misalignment of communities, which the ruling elite can redress through targeted policies.