Recent Italian Historiography on Italian Fascism

Recent Italian Historiography on Italian Fascism1

Danilo Breschi

I. A Post-De Felice Phase?Any cursory review of the past five years of Italian historiography on

fascism obviously would be subject to multiple criticisms and be con-demned for partiality, especially since the time span under investigation isrelatively brief and only the work of select Italian scholars can be consid-ered. Not all the published literature on fascism could be taken intoaccount, given the enormous attention still given to the subject in aca-demic monographs and journalistic accounts.

As with any historical period or political regime, Italian fascism presentsa series of recurrent questions that already have been addressed at length,some of which continue to generate bitter and seemingly irresolvable contro-versies. Italian historiography, in particular, evidenced a return to the totali-tarianism paradigm, over which important differences quickly emerged:some adopted it as a cogent explanation, while others rejected it as insuffi-cient or misleading. Considering the vast historiography of recent years,three questions have been the focus of the most interest, i.e., those concern-ing fascist ideology, those concerning the actual structure of the fascistregime, and those concerning the relation between fascism and modernity.

Before beginning, it is necessary to clarify some criteria; first, even ifan elaboration of a general theory of fascism is the ultimate objective, thisdiscussion will be limited to Italian fascism, sometimes referred to as“paradigmatic fascism”2; second, even though selecting the beginning ofthe 21st century as a benchmark has no scientific basis as such, it does

1. Translated from the Italian by Marilena Filice and Stefano Maranzana. 2. Alessandro Campi, ed., Che cos’è il fascismo? (Rome: Ideazione, 2003), pp.

LIX-LV. This anthology contains recent interpretations of the fascist phenomenon in Italyand elsewhere by such major scholars as Roger Eatwell, Emilio Gentile, A. James Gregor,Roger Griffon, Stein Larsen, Juan Linz, Robert Paxton, Stanley Payne, and Pierre Milza.

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denote an important turning point, since it ushered in a new phase in Ital-ian historiography on fascism that may be characterized as post-Renzo DeFelice. De Felice, the most prominent of Italian historians dealing withItalian fascism, died in May 1996, but continued to have both a positiveand a negative influence on Italy’s never-ending historical and politicaldebate concerning the two decades that Mussolini’s regime was inpower.3 The negative influence was largely a consequence of the fearsand ill will of his critics. De Felice became the center of an ongoingpolemic that arose after the 1974 publication of the first part of the thirdvolume of his monumental biography of Mussolini, dealing with the so-called “years of consent.” At that point, polemics exploded and the cli-mate became still more charged in 1975, with the publication of an inter-view on fascism that the American historian Michael Ledeen conductedwith De Felice. Another book-interview, this time with the journalist Pas-quale Chessa, added new polemics, which were exacerbated by rumorscirculating about the last, incomplete volume of De Felice’s Mussolinibiography, regarding the delicate subject of the 1943-45 “civil war.”4

This is not the place for a detailed reconstruction of the controversyconcerning De Felice, which went well beyond the narrow world of Ital-ian university discourse, pouring onto the pages of mass circulation news-papers and magazines. Nevertheless, it might be useful for non-Italians tounderstand what it meant to study fascism in Italy during the yearsbetween 1960 and 1990. First, it would be helpful to begin with some clar-ification regarding the paramount role played by De Felice during thisperiod. De Felice gave interviews in which he intentionally provoked notonly the historiographic culture but, more generally, the political culture ofthe Left, especially concerning the link between anti-fascism and democ-racy. For example, in two interviews with Giuliano Ferrara, at the time ajournalist with Corriere della Sera, published during the second half of the1980s, De Felice explicitly intended to intervene in the contentious politi-cal debate concerning constitutional and institutional reforms proposed bythe former Italian Socialist Party leader, Bettino Craxi. He spoke of theneed to overcome principled positions, stuck in the immediate post-WWII

3. See the special issue of Annali della Fondazione Ugo Spirito 1998, whichincluded papers presented at two conferences in Rome and in Milan in the Fall of 1997dedicated to the life and work of Renzo De Felice. See also Pasquale Chessa andFrancesco Villari, Interpretazioni su Renzo De Felice (Milan: Baldini & Castoldi, 2002).

4. See Renzo De Felice, Mussolini l‘alleato. II. La guerra civile 1943-1945,(Turin: Einaudi, 1997). This volume, published after the author’s death, was completed byEmilio Gentile, Luigi Goglia and Mario Missori.

ITALIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY 17

period, and to stimulate new discussion concerning new foundations for theItalian Republic. He presented himself as a liberal intellectual, interveningin favor of rethinking the ideals and the historical basis of the political sys-tem in which he was living, for he was sensing the exhaustion of anti-fas-cism, as well as the validity of some of its very premises. Before the fall ofthe Berlin Wall, he was anticipating the degree to which the foundationsupon which the Italian Republic had been constructed had weakened —foundations that had been built on unresolved political and social cleavages.

According to De Felice, the moment was mature for a completedemocratization of the Italian political system, still encumbered by theremnants of fascist statism and based on the dated logic of civil war. EmiloGentile, a historian of the De Felice “school” and the author of a critical,biographical outline of his “teacher,” recalled the climate in which the Ital-ian debate on fascism took place: [T]he communism-anticommunismschema has waned considerably. For this reason as well, all the flaws in thestructure of the Constitution have emerged. It is also understandable thatthe other great alternative, fascism/anti-fascism, also has fallen. It no longerhas meaning in the public consciousness or in the reality of everyday polit-ical conflicts. Our Constitution gets stuck if it rests on dubious dogma.5

From the mid-1970s until De Felice’s death, all polemics related to hisname provoked Italian historians and journalists to divide into two camps— “De Felicians” and “anti-De Felicians” — with arguments that fre-quently had little or nothing to do with the real content of his work or thesignificance of his interpretations. More often than not, the polemicsdegenerated into hostility toward De Felice. Several times, at the Univer-sity of Rome, De Felice became a target of intimidating protests fromgroups of students who sought to prevent him from teaching. A fewmonths before his death, someone threw two molotov cocktails at hishouse.6 As Gentile observed:

To minimize the gravity of these attacks, to reduce them to exasperatedforms of legitimate critical dissent, and to ignore the fact that the polem-ics against De Felice often had tones and expressions of disgracefulintolerance, would be reprehensible, to say the least. Conversely, itwould be misleading to depict the victim of these attacks as an ostracizedhistorian, boycotted with an isolating silence over his work and his ideas,

5. Corriere della Sera (December 27, 1987).6. Emilio Gentile, Renzo De Felice: Lo storico e il personaggio (Rome: Laterza,

2003), p. 14.

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restricted to a sort of inner exile. This sort of image would flies is theface of the loud and rising popularity of the “personality,” with the edito-rial success of his books, with the resonance that the various “De Feliceaffairs” had in diverse circles, with De Felice’s regular presence in thepress and on television inside and outside Italy.7

Understandably, given the centrality of De Felice for the last twodecades, no review of Italian studies on fascism can ignore the historian,his biography, and his research. The polemics over De Felice, Gentilepoints out, will become part of history as well, allowing for a better dis-tinction between what were expressions of legitimate and critical dissentand of partisan ideological contempt. At this point, however, note shouldbe taken of a turning point in Italian debates on fascism that has takenplace during the past five years. De Felice has been “metabolized” bymany historians who, until recently, had opposed him; what at firstseemed scandalous has now substantially become a shared heritage.Books that have been published since De Felice’s death often containtestimonials of respect and recognition of the historiographic contribu-tions by the author of the impressive, multi-volume Mussolini biogra-phy. It is now widely conceded that the empirical and theoreticaloutcome of De Felice’s thirty-year Mussolini biography project is ofinestimable importance. Much of what had earlier been dismissed andlabeled as “revisionism,” understood in an accusatory, defamatory sense,is now commonly accepted.

There are two of De Felice’s contributions worthy of note: the firstmay be considered totally shared; the second, in large measure. The firstis a distinction between “fascism as movement” and “fascism as aregime” — the period which in 1926 marked an authoritarian or pre-total-itarian turn. The second is a profound distinction between fascism andNazism — in terms of modernity, as well as of the limited heuristic utilityof “memory” from the Resistance period in reconstructing the history ofthe Civil War (an affirmation that still provokes scandalous reactions).Yet, such an affirmation was made by Pier Giorgio Zunino, a student ofFranco Venturi, who was a partisan combatant and an illustrious memberof the Party of Action.8 Zunino’s statement at the end of 2003 confirmsthe observation that De Felice’s work has now been metabolized and hasbecome part of a shared scientific heritage.

7. Ibid., pp. 14-15.8. Pier Giorgio Zunino, La Repubblica e il suo passato (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2003),

pp. 216.


De Felice’s eight volumes are an authentic treasure. His Mussolinibiography provides an important basis to better understand recent Italianhistory. One could almost say, at this point, that the work seems moreimportant than the person who wrote it.9

The first and even more authoritative recognition given to De Felicewas in 1995, when he was still alive. Norberto Bobbio, unquestionablythe most important and acclaimed exponent of the secular, anti-fascistculture of the post-WWII period, said that: “the term ‘revisionism’ hascome to be used with a certain negative connotation, above all by anti-fascists. Even those who have criticized his work cannot deny that, atone time or another, they have used parts of it, because it is a fundamen-tal study of Mussolini and of fascism . . . . It is an historical effort, andnot meant to be a polemic.10

However, Bobbio’s words remained rather isolated until morerecently. From the beginning of the new century, there has been anincrease in temperate opinions from the Left and from other sectors thatonce spoke with manifest prejudicial disgust as well as legitimate dis-agreement. Prejudicial aversion has been reduced considerably and haslost legitimacy and credibility. A changed political climate contributed tothis openness as well, specifically the principle of alternation in govern-mental leadership, and the progressive acknowledgement by the politicaland intellectual Left that the Right exists and can govern legitimately.This acknowledgement was certainly not immediate, nor was it pacific, asdemonstrated by the Left’s loss of influence and its power of censorship.

For those who are familiar with the history of the birth and consolida-tion of the Italian Republic during the second half of the 20th century, aswell as the “myths of how it was founded,” the imprimatur of the Left hasbeen influential and, in some ways, still is. Though rarely expressed, thisis reflected in De Felice’s work as well, given the incontrovertible natureof some historical assessments supported by heavy documentary evi-dence. Regarding other of De Filice’s theories, such as the one linkingfascism and the middle classes, a period of reflection has begun, whichhas highlighted the limits and vagueness of certain concepts (especiallyDe Felice’s use of the term “consensus”).11

9. Nello Ajello, Interview with Pier Giogio Zunino, in La Repubblica (December17, 2003).

10. Norberto Bobbio, Renzo De Felice, and Gian Enrico Rusconi, Italiani, amicinemici (Rome: Donzeilli, 1996), p. 24.

11. See the observations of Luca Baldissara, “Vecchie e nuovi ceti medi nella stori-ografia sul fascismo italiano,” in Mariuccia Salvatti, ed., Per una storia comparata delmunicipalismo delle scienze sociali (Bologna: CLUEB, 1993), pp. 126-41.

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With regard to the fascist period, it is important to add that, after thefall of the Berlin Wall, it became important for the Italian communist Leftto revise the recent past, which had suddenly become uncomfortable andembarrassing.12 A decisive role also was played by the post-fascist, if notanti-fascist evolution (more accurately, an anti-fascist, anti-communism)of the Italian political Right, which began at the Fiuggi Conference heldin early 1995 and symbolically concluded with a declaration of AlleanzeNazionale leader Gianfranco Fini during his trip to Israel in late Novem-ber, 2003. On that occasion, anti-Semitism and the horrors of the Holo-caust, an “absolute evil,” were condemned, and fascism (including theItalian Social Republic) was repudiated for its contribution to the violenceand the persecutions that tormented the first half of the 20th century.13

In a somewhat opposite, uncharacteristic process, the neo-fascistRight and the communist Left quickly abandoned their extreme wingswithin the Italian political system. Incidentally, this “extremism,” or bet-ter yet, “radicalism,” had long been effectively abandoned by the neo-fas-cist MSI and the communist PCI with respect to parliamentary andadministrative policy, but remained important symbolically for the pur-poses of identity and mobilization — issues central to any political partyappealing to a mass constituency. Beyond his immediate political calcula-tions and motivations, Fini’s most recent declarations about the Holocaustand fascism have largely decentered the politics and polemics of the past(which certainly does not suggest remaining ignorant or indifferent to thevalues of freedom and democracy).

Since its beginning, fascism has elicited questions regarding the typeof dictatorship Mussolini and his black shirts incarnated: was it a case ofsimple conservatism with a heavy dose of authoritarianism, a counter-revolutionary reaction to the “two-year communist period” and the fear ofa wave of Bolshevism, or was it the first form of totalitarianism, whichwould leave an indelible and traumatic mark on 20th century Europe? In

12. For an interesting account of the last years of the PCI and its transformation intothe PDS, see Massimo de Angelis, Post. Confessioni di un ex communista (Milan: Guerini,2003). De Angelis served as the head of public relations and worked closely with the PCIsecretary Achille Occhetto.

13. After his return from Israel, Fini gave this reply to criticism coming from withinhis party: “And if the Holocaust represented absolute evil, that applies as well to the acts offascism that contributed to the Holocaust. We know that the complex history of fascismhas many other moments too, but if we wish those to be recognized by all Italians withoutthe usual accusations of historical revisionism, it is indispensable for us to be intransigentin denouncing the misdeeds and the tragedies.” See Secolo d’Italia (November, 28, 2003).


considering a definition of fascism, one should begin by taking seriouslythe words of its creator and undisputed leader. On June 22, 1925, in hisclosing address to the fourth (and last) PNF national convention, Musso-lini declared: “What do we want? Something superb: we want Italians tochoose! The era of small Italians — those who held a thousand opinions,but never really had one at all — is over. We have carried the struggle overa terrain so clear that by now one must no longer be ‘here and there,’ but‘here’ — on that side which came to be defined by our ferocious totalitar-ian will, that side which will be pursued with still more ferocity, becomingtruly the obsession and dominant preoccupation of our activity.”14

The return of this “totalitarian” theme is due to the most recent inter-ventions of Emilio Gentile, one of the most well-known Italian scholarsin the US.15 In his recent writings and public speeches, Gentile has per-sistently underscored the totalitarian nature of fascist ideology, the fascistparty, and of the entire fascist regime. However, he does this by usingarguments which, though richly cited, are not free of contradictions andsome empirical limits indirectly highlighted in the historiography thatemerged more or less in the same period. With reference to the ideologi-cal nature of fascism, which has never been unambiguously identified orclassified, an important question was raised during the 1980s by ZeevSternhell: Is fascism a phenomenon of the Left or the Right?16 Or does itbelong to a “third category” that crowded the European political/ideolog-ical panorama between the two world wars?17

Among the various contributions that have emerged on fascism duringthe past 20 years, a volume published in 2000 bears a distinctive approachthat holds out rich prospects for future research. Giuseppe Parlato, likeEmilio Gentile, belongs to the heterogeneous and eclectic “De Feliceclan.” His book bears a title that immediately suggests an intent to under-cover something new in the somewhat dated work on fascist ideology:

14. Opera Omnia di Benito Mussolini, Vol. XXI, p. 362.15. With the advent of this new “post-De Felice phase” in Italian historiography, it

is useful to explore some of the most significant publications in Italy on fascism since theyear 2000, including some works from previous years. The choice of material selected forthis study was based on the contribution each piece offered in addressing some of the fun-damental, unresolved questions, especially those concerning the nature of fascist ideology,the structure of the fascist regime, and the relation between fascism and modernity.

16. See Zeev Sternhell, Neither Left Nor Right (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress 1996), and Zeev Sternhell, Mario Sznajder and Maria Aserhi, The Birth of FascistIdeology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).

17. See Bongiovanni’s preface to Luca La Rovare, Storia del Guf (Turin: Boringh-ieri, 2003), pp. xxii-xxiii, n. 29

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“Left Fascism” is a very different formula than the familiar “fascism ofthe Left,”18 and not only in the grammatical sense. This differentapproach opens a new path, still to be explored, regarding the possibilityof a “national Left,” as distinguished from a Marxist Left (socialists andcommunists) and a non-nationalist, non-Marxist Left (democratic radicalsand republicans), or perhaps even a fourth Left, if an anarchist one (whichis Italy originally was Bakunian and anti-Marxist) is considered.

Another important historiographical theme regarding fascism and itsnature, whether ideological or operative, is its relation to modernization.Anglo-Saxon literature on this theme already was vast by the early 1960s,building upon solid theoretical bases, mainly elaborated during the 1930sby German-Jewish intellectual refugees.19 In Italy, once again, it waslargely with De Felice that the relation between fascism and moderniza-tion ceased to be excluded a priori or regarded as a contradiction in terms.Through the interpretations of some contemporary observers (Salvatorelli,Amendola), as well as the American social science literature on mass soci-ety, De Felice, in the early 1970s, began a dialogue with foreign scholarswho were asking the question if and to what extent fascism was modern.George L. Mosse was among the first scholars who established contactwith De Felice, and accepted the proposition according to which Italianfascism drew upon progressive, Jacobin, and Enlightenment influences,whereas German Nazism embraced a static, regressive, and definitelyanti-Enlightenment Weltanschauung.20 Notwithstanding this apparentagreement between Mosse and De Felice, the “modern fascism/anti-mod-ern fascism” dilemma never has been resolved, even though 20 years latersome studies emerged which highlighted important modernist aspects ofthe Italian fascist regime. Indeed, it is still difficult to comprehend how itcould have been possible that modernity — at an ideological and practicallevel — included brutal domination and culminated in hatred and racialpersecution, for which Italian fascism also bears responsibility.

18. For an introduction to this discussion, see Silvio Lanaro, “Apunti sul fascismo‘di sinistra,’” in Alberto Aquarone and Maruizio Vernassa, Il regime fascista (Bologna: IlMulino, 1974), pp. 357-387.

19. See Mariucia Salvati, Da Berlin a New York (Milan: Mondadori, 2000). Thisvolume, prefaced with a long essay by the editor, is an anthology of texts on mass society,the crisis of the middle classes, and the advent in Europe of new, totalitarian dictatorships.Several analyses were conducted in the 1930s and early 1940s by German sociologistswho had fled or were exiled from Nazi Germany (Emil Lederer, Theodor Geiger, HansSpeier, Franz Neumann).

20. G.L. Mosse, Intervista sul nazismo, conducted by Michael Ledeen (Bari: Lat-erza, 1997).


Notwithstanding diffuse disenchantment with respect to the virtuesof progress, it continues to be difficult to place the fascist dictatorshipamong the historical expressions of modernity. To what measure is thisembarrassment the result of an ideological and customary prejudiceinherited from Western political thought, or does it have some founda-tion in the effective anti-modern nature of fascism? Ambivalence andambiguity are words frequently used to define the ideology and acceptedpractice of Mussolini’s movement and regime. It would be opportune atthis point to focus attention on this terminology, which some recentlypublished books facilitate.

Many other terms could be mentioned as examples of the loose knotsin the historiography of Italian fascism, and of fascism as an internationalphenomenon. As an example, for a long time there was a question ofwhether “fascism” can be talked about in a singular sense or whether as aplural of “fascisms.” Is it possible to formulate a “general theory of fas-cism,” as Mosse had begun, or are fascism and Nazism only two cases oflarger number? Mosse suggested individualizing elements under a com-mon theme in order to define a sort of “weak identity” that might be typi-cal of fascism. An Italian political scientist, Marco Tarchi, has recentlyposed this question in his book on theories and models of fascism, whichremains an isolated voice in Italy’s social scientific world.21

Other than Tarchi, not many Italian social scientists have demon-strated much interest in the analysis of fascism employing methodologicaltools significantly different from those used in traditional historiographicresearch. In order to find Italian sociologists and political scientists whohave been concerned with the study of fascism, it would be necessary togo back to the 1970s.22 In any case, the wide range of models andapproaches employed by Tarchi yields a minimal definition substantiallyshaped by Mosse’s hypotheses. After a careful review of the eight “ascer-tained distinctive elements” proposed by Tarchi, an impasse is reached.European nationalism in the early 20th century could be similarly or iden-tically defined, whether in theory or as political practice. What then wasessentially distinctive about “fascism?”

21. Marco Tarchi, Fascismo, Teorie, interpretazione e modelli (Rome: Laterza,2003).

22. The best known is Gino Germani (1911-79), an anti-fascist sociologist who leftfor Argentina in 1934, and later taught in Buenos Aires, Harvard, and finally Naples. See hisSociologia della modernizzazione (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1975). See also the anthologies:Luciano Cavalli, ed., Il fascismo nell’analisi sociologica (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1975) andEdda Saccomani, ed., Le interpretazioni sociologiche del fascismo (Turin: Loescher, 1977).

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In the early 1970, De Felice came close to some of Mosse’s theo-ries,23 i.e., the same theories on which Tarchi based his interpretativeeffort. A peculiar “attitude towards life” would constitute a minimumcommon denominator of the phenomena of fascism, Nazism, and simi-lar cases limited to the years between the two world wars. Tarchi’s pro-posal has the merit of combining cultural and ideological elements, onthe one hand, with structural ones, especially the central role of thestate, on the other. Accordingly, fascist movements may be consideredin terms of those which:

1. aspire to shape the entire population into one national, organic com-munity whose state is the expression of political priority;2. celebrate national identity and promise to rekindle the traditions whichare the foundations that guarantee a glorious future for the country;3. combat parliamentary democracy founded on party pluralism, whichwould divide the population;4. aim to uproot conflict between classes — a concept counterpoised to acooperative or collaborative system based on collective solidarity;5. accept and promote violence as an instrument of legitimate politicalaction when necessary to defend national interests;6. affirm the primacy of politics over the economy with the intention ofplacing capital and private property at the service of the community tomeet productivist aims;7. defend the concept of a world which opposes spirituality to material-ism, exalting the role of elites and charismatic personalities who putthemselves in the service of the national community;8. are determined to establish a single-party regime directed towardintegrating, educating, and mobilizing the population in order to build anew social and cultural order, under the guidance of a leader.24

Clearly, this approach is still very far from finding a convincing“point of departure” regarding movements that are distinctively fascist,unless, as Mosse suggests in all his work on fascism, nationalism shouldbe understood as the anthropological incubator of fascism and Nazism. Inthis case, the starting point would have to be backdated and found withinItalian society during the so-called industrial take-off. This would be theItaly of Alfredo Oriani, Enrico Corradini, and D’Annunzio (and espe-cially “dannunzioism” understood as a distinctive mode and style of life

23. George Mosse, The Fascist Revolution (New York: Howard Fertig, 1999), pp. 1-44.

24. Tarchi, Fascismo, op. cit, pp. 153-154.


emulated by various strata of society, especially the bourgeoisie (grand,middle, and small), i.e. the class most drawn to fascist symbols andmyths). This cultural humus would then have to be considered a specialterrain, mined and ready to explode in all its violence by WWI, by thethirst for power and glory of clever and also very lucky demagogues.

II. Totalitarian or not Totalitarian?For 30 years, Emilio Gentile has dedicated his energies to analyzing

Italian fascism. He has produced a vast amount of work on the topic,much of which has been translated abroad and is recognized as a mainpoint of reference for all historians. After years of studying the subject,perhaps it was inevitable that Gentile would reach the point of elaborat-ing and summarizing the important scientific results attained. The volumepublished by Laterza in 2002 entitled Fascism: History and Interpreta-tion, does precisely this and, as suggested, marks a passage between thepast and the future, as well as an update on the present state of his work.25

It contains an introduction, eleven chapters and “closing considerations.”Most of the material had been published (between 1974 and 1996),except for chapters three, ten and the conclusion. Chapter nine containsan essay originally published in Journal of Contemporary History enti-tled “Fascism as a Political Religion.” The novelty of this volume istherefore found in these chapters, and in the introduction bearing a pro-vocative title: “Did Fascism Ever Exist?”

In the Introduction, Gentile says he was motivated to write this bookbecause Italy was undergoing a period of “retrospective de-fascistization,”or at least a tendency to remove from fascism “the attributes that belongedto fascism and which characterized its historical individuality.” Accordingto Gentile, the most fundamental historical characteristic that was elimi-nated from the description of fascism was “totalitarian.” To deny the total-itarian nature of fascism, he argues, would imply that the structures andsuperstructures of Mussolini’s regime had less of an impact on Italiansociety in the 1920s and 1930s. The identification of the nature and thescope of fascism with Mussolinism, i.e. with the political vicissitudes ofthe Duce, could be regarded as an index of “de-fascistization,” above all,where such an identification removes or minimizes the responsibility bothof party leaders and those who applauded Mussolini in the public squares.

The tendency to highlight the dissident views and the criticism of fas-cist leaders such as Giuseppe Bottai, Dino Grandi, Luigi Federzoni, and

25. Ibid., 153-154.

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Alberto De Stefani leads one to lose sight of the ideological investmentthat fascism produced and extended through its 20-year reign, above allamong those who collaborated with and served under the Duce. Accord-ing to Gentile, to deny “that there existed a fascist ideology, a fascist cul-ture, a fascist ruling class, and a mass adhesion to fascism” is tantamountto not taking the fascist phenomenon seriously. On this point, Gentile’spreoccupation is so strong that he risks advancing some theses that areopen to objection. For example, he claims with all “historical certainty, itwas not the Bolshevik revolution that opened Western Europe to totalitar-ianism, followed by National Socialism, but the March on Rome, whichestablished the fascist regime and began the new experiment in politicaldomination.” Moreover, “everything happened through an autonomousimpulse, inherent in the very nature of fascism, and it even happenedwhen Mussolini publicly affirmed, at the end of 1921, that still talking ofa “Bolshevik danger in Italy was nonsense.”

As Gentile writes elsewhere, the very concept of totalitarianism wasborn from and with fascism. Giovanni Amendola and Lelio Basso, twoopponents of the fascist regime, were the first to coin the terms “totalitarian”and “totalitarianism.” Even more controversial is the affirmation that thefirst historical totalitarian movement was fascism. Gentile’s definition of thephenomenon is as follows: “Fascism is a modern political phenomenon. It isnationalist and revolutionary, anti-liberal and anti-Marxist. It is organized ina militia party and has a totalitarian conception of state politics.” The ques-tion is: what is “a totalitarian conception of state politics?” Gentile answersthis query in his third chapter, in which he defines “totalitarianism” as:

An experiment in political domination put into action by a revolution-ary movement organized in a militarily disciplined party with an inte-gralist concept of politics that aspires to a monopoly of power. Afterconquering power through legal or extra-legal means, it destroys ortransforms the pre-existing regime, constructing a single party-statewith the principal objective of conquering society, i.e., the subordina-tion, integration, and homogenization of the governed. It does so on thebasis of a principled politicization of existence, whether individual orcollective, interpreted according to the categories, myths, and values ofa palingenetic ideology, made sacred in the form of a political religion,with the aim of shaping individuals and the masses by means of ananthropological revolution to regenerate human beings and create anew man dedicated in body and soul to the revolutionary and imperial-istic policies of the totalitarian party. The ultimate goal is to create a


new civilization with a supranational character.26

It would be opportune to dwell upon the use of the word “experiment”,the verb “to aspire,” and the expression “main objective” in this last cita-tion. All of these lexical expressions highlight the plan, rather than the con-crete realization. Perhaps totalitarianism, according to this definition, ispurposefully incomplete, and this is why Gentile so frequently uses theword “laboratory.” Another obvious question arises from Gentile’s defini-tion: Does not the Bolshevik party, which took power in October 1917 andmaintained it throughout the difficult years of the Civil War, embodywholly or in part the very same characteristics specified by Gentile? And, ifso, wasn’t Bolshevism also, from its beginnings, a totalitarian movement?

Certainly, it was not defined in these terms, nor was it intended as aneologism. This was not necessary; Lenin and his followers firmly keptto a consolidated and affirmed tradition in European political culture, i.e.,Marxist socialism. The question which remains is whether, behind someold and recent phrases such as “dictatorship of the proletariat” and “pro-fessional revolutionary party” there is not a hidden unitary regime, a soci-ety ideologically oriented toward uniform thought and action, totallysubjected and integrated with a view aimed at drastic transformation.Even though the final end was to create a community of free and equalworkers, able to organize and run things on its own in a manner no longerrequiring the presence of a state, this in no way alters what Bolshevismwas and became from the very beginning. Almost immediately, the ten-dency emerged to concentrate power in the hands of a party responsiblefor the revolution, eliminating all other parties and sources of opposition,often through illegal means.

Domenico Fisichella, a political scientist whose work has focused ontotalitarianism, argues that in order to advance a classification it is neces-sary to assume a comparative perspective, whereas Gentile studies only asingular case. A historical comparison demonstrates how, even as onestruggles to identify fascism as the first de jure instance of totalitarianism,there can be no doubt that Bolshevism was de facto the first. In 1919, fas-cism did not define itself in terms of totalitarianism either in fact or inlaw, notwithstanding some generic palingenetic and revolutionary aspira-tions altogether common among politicians and intellectuals of opposingsides. Bolshevism, however, put totalitarianism into practice, starting

26. Ibid., pp. 67-68.

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from the first months after its seizure of power, even in the structure givento a party that soon would have to face a civil war.

The possibility remains open for an expansion and deformation ofthe totalitarian category, as with all ideal types, even those constructedaccording to the teachings and rigorous methodology of Max Weber. Asan ideal concept created by assembling diverse historical elements andpatterns, it could be based as well on a different selection or a differentinterpretation of the same elements, thus modifying the contents con-noted by the category. One could then arrive at formulations of a totali-tarian type that might eliminate National Socialism, rather than Italianfascism or Soviet Communism, or even exclude all three in favor ofincluding Maoist China or who knows what other classification. This isa risk inherent in putting too much faith into amalgamated categoriesand generalized criteria when attempting to describe individual phenom-ena limited in time and space.

A final risk that is hidden in the systematic use of the totalitarian cat-egory, even when its significance is opportunistically limited, is revealedin German historiography on National Socialism. Authors of the caliberof Martin Broszat and Norbert Frei, for example, sought to specificallyhighlight the relationships established with German civil society duringthe 1930s. In this regard, it is interesting to note how the historical andeven moral phenomena studied by Frei are analogous to those pursued byGentile in his study of Italian fascism, yet Frei takes a position on the useof the totalitarian category diametrically opposed to that of Gentile:“First of all, I would like to emphasize that the nature of the Nazi Weltan-schauung is unequivocally and indisputably totalitarianism, as is theambition of the Nazi regime. In an analysis of Nazi ideology, it is there-fore impossible not to use the concept of totalitarianism. However, if onewishes to understand the internal development of the regime, as internalpolitics — the daily life of the population, the culture, how industrial civ-ilization in those years continued to unfold — then one could do verywell without the concept. To describe the internal development of soci-ety, the concept of totalitarianism is not only unnecessary, it is almostuseless, if not truly irrelevant.”27

Indeed, the use (becoming an abuse) of the concept of totalitarianismhas favored a tendency that undermines a sense of responsibility in Ger-man public opinion during the postwar period. What is more, according to

27. Norbert Frei, “Germania: i conti col passato,” interview with Stefano Eleuteri inMondOperaio (May 1992), pp. 25-26.


Frei, taking into account the debate over “collective guilt” that hadmarked the 1940s and 1950s, the theory of totalitarianism lessened asense of individual culpability for what had happened under NationalSocialism. Applied to the Nazi phenomenon, the systematic recourse tothe category of totalitarianism resulted in a distorted misunderstanding ofhistory, analogous, in some ways, to that produced by Gentile withrespect to fascist Italy. In Germany, at least for a while, attention becamefocused on the state and on the Nazi Party — its apparatus and its ideol-ogy — thereby minimizing mass adherence to the regime and other ques-tions that are at the center of Gentile’s concerns.

Gentile is well-aware of these risks and difficulties. His third chapterrests on two basic assumptions. The first affirms that “a totalitarian politicalsystem functions like a laboratory experimenting with an ‘anthropologicalrevolution’ trying to create a new kind of human being.” The secondreminds us that “the history of the totalitarian fascist experiment is a historyof continuous tension, resistance, and conflicts in institutions, in society, inthe collective conscious, and in fascism itself.” The tenth chapter developsthe first assumption, but the entire volume oscillates between the two affir-mations, whereby one represents apparently a limitation, if not a refutationof the other. Perhaps a solution to the contradiction might rest with the fol-lowing formulation: fascism first is a movement, then a dictatorial massregime aimed at the totalitarian conquest of the state and of society. How-ever, historically it was, in fact, an “authoritarian compromise” depictedbest by Massimo Legnani. In reality, “authoritative compromise” and“totalitarian hypotheses” do not necessarily lie in a continuous line. Theyare often forced to cohabit: the first one tends to neutralize the second, andthe path toward totalitarianization, which is mostly incomplete, and willintroduce strong tension in this “compromise.” Tension, not fractures.28

This appears to be the final interpretive outcome of Emilo Gentile’s 30years of research, stimulatingly summarized in his book on the history andinterpretation of fascism. Alberto De Bernardi arrives at a substantiallysimilar conclusion. Recapitulating five key criteria which identify totali-tarian regimes, De Bernardi too is conscious of the great ambition of Mus-solini and many of his leaders. “Fascism aimed to construct and representitself as a totalitarian regime, as a new form of State organization in whichevery aspect of life is under the control of the party-state which would

28. Massimo Legnani, “Sistema di potere fascista, blocco dominante, alleanzesociali,” in Angelo Del Boca, Massimo Legnani, and Mario G. Rossi, Il regime fascista.Storia e storiografica (Rome: Laterza, 1995), pp. 422-23.

30 DANILO BRESCHI

realize itself with the complete integration of the State and society.” How-ever much one might have aspired toward a realization of this desiderataon the part of fascist leadership, a separate assessment must be maderegarding the policies actually put into practice at the national and locallevels, as well as their impact on society. De Bernardi’s research hereleads him to question the heuristic and explanatory limits of the totalitarianparadigm: “It is true, however, that when this model is compared to theconcrete historical features of Italian fascism, something is missing. Not-withstanding the will of the Duce and fascist leadership to realize theirtotalitarian project, the fascist regime never actually succeeded in com-pletely overcoming all the institutional, political, and social compromisesupon which Mussolini’s personal dictatorship was founded. As numerousscholars have noted, the presence of a monarchy and a Constitution —from which the very legitimacy of Mussolini’s government derived, andnot only in formal terms — actually facilitated the permanence of powerindispensable to monocratic control, pre-existing elements which fusedand intertwined with the new system of power created by the regime.”

The result was therefore more of a “polycratic” system than a “mono-cratic” one, imposing upon citizens a dual fidelity — to the King and to theDuce — in stark contrast with a totalitarian system, where the singularityof political command is paradigmatic. This was a problem as well withinthe intimate circle of fascist leadership, since many of them retained a pro-found attachment to the crown, which contrasted with the “iron unity” sur-rounding the Duce.29 Moreover, one cannot be even certain aboutMussolini’s totalitarian “vocation.” His totalitarianism favored some, notall, of the main distinctive characteristics of the ideal typical model, i.e.,the charismatic head and related cult of personality, and the single militiaparty. In other words, Mussolini’s dream of totalitarian fascism resembleda modern form of “caesarism” — a new form of tyranny ready for the chal-lenge of a society characterized by masses in a state of anxiety, yearningfor that political, economic, and social mobility seen partially as a realityand partially as a revolutionary promise during and above all after WWI.It would be interesting to examine the totalitarian intent inherent in theanti-Semitic campaign of 1938, and how independent and specific itmight have been with respect to the characteristically racist politics ofNazi Germany, already by this point an influential ally. Michael A.Ledeen recently highlighted this aspect of Mussolini’s mentality: “The

29. Alberto De Bernardi, Una dittature moderna (Milan: Mondadori, 2001), pp.74-76.


consensus at which Mussolini aimed was a nationalization of the masses. AsDe Felice observed, it was not a coincidence that precisely during the yearswhen Mussolini tried to create a consensus, he returned to his studies ofNietzsche. He was convinced that the great crisis that so heavily struck theindustrialized nations was not a transitory phenomenon, but rather a crisis ofthe system itself. New persons were called upon to dominate a long-term cri-sis and, accordingly, the emphasis of government action changed from thearena of social institutions to that of human attitudes and emotions.”30

Mussolini’s anti-Semitism should therefore be interpreted as a “girodi vite,” i.e., as the expression of a will to incrementally accelerate the“fascistization” of the Italian population. Through the adoption of anti-Semitic legislation, one can glimpse better than elsewhere the “vocation”and totalitarian will of Mussolini and his regime. To be “Italian” and to be“fascist” had to be made to coincide, but it is necessary to add that thisprocess of identification and generalizing mass support for the regime, asDe Felice said, “became ever more effective and vast, not as it politicizeditself, but rather as it was depoliticized, sinking its roots less and less inadhesion to the PNF (that each day lost prestige and provoked more dis-satisfaction), but instead more and more in the myth of Mussolini and ofItaly finally ‘on the march’.”31 Recent analyses have arrived at similarconclusions, for example, Salvatore Lupo’s study of the administrativestructure of the PNF. Lupo demonstrates how Mussolini accomplished asystematic depoliticization of the regime, aiming to remain the sole,unchallenged protagonist on the scene. Often playing various party lead-ers against the various local ras, Mussolini weakened the framework of aparallel fascist state to the advantage of the political and social institutionsof the pre-existing liberal state. He did this at the very moment in whichhe reinforced the cult of his own personality.

Lupo’s work, however, contains a curious and recurring characteris-tic found in many recent studies of the fascist regime. They all start withthe premise that fascism was totalitarian only to arrive at opposite con-clusions, indicating a fundamental problem with both the initial pre-sumption, as well as with the concept of totalitarianism itself — aconcept which, at the same time, seems to explains too much and too lit-tle. Bruno Bongiovanni, in the preface to Luca La Rovere’s vast andmeticulous reconstruction of the GUF (Gruppi Universiari Fascisti),

30. M.A. Ledeen “Il fascismo e la nazionalizzazione della masse: dal consenso allpolitica razziale,” in Annali della Fondazione Ugo Spirito (1998), p. 264.

31. De Felice, Mussolini il duce. I. Gli anni del consenso 1929-36, p. 3.

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goes so far as to claim that, as a concrete phenomenon, totalitarianismnever really existed, except perhaps as a contradictory and changingform of communist, fascist and Nazi constructivism.32 But such an affir-mation must be accepted with great reserve, especially when Bongio-vanni claims the total absence in all three cases of an initial totalitarianintentionality. There is a significant difference between underlining thedynamic historical nature of totalitarianism, on the one hand, andassuming its quasi-causality, on the other. However, perhaps Bongio-vanni’s provocation begins to answer Hamlet’s dilemma on fascist total-itarianism. It would be opportune to discuss the semantics and theheuristic value of the term “totalitarianism.” A reconstruction of its ori-gins would indicate that it was used during two phases of history, mainlyas a synthesis of empirical analysis and political instrumentalization.33

The first historical phase refers to the use of the concept by contempo-raries of fascism (and Nazism), above all by their opponents. The sec-ond phase coincides with the advent of the Cold War, when the termfulfilled a pro-American and pro-Western ideological function againstthe Soviet Union. Obviously, the excessive elasticity of the concept,deployed in different political contexts with different political aims, ren-ders the term extremely fragile and easy to contest. At the moment, onemust share some of Bongiovanni’s skepticism, especially if the term isto be used for comparison.

III. Fascism as a “Third Left”Until very recently, putting “Left” and “fascist” side by side would

be nothing less than a crime for anti-fascists, who always equated fas-cism with the Right and anti-fascism with the Left. Today, certaintieshave deteriorated and historians have begun to uncover a much moreconfused and tangled cultural-political profile. Giuseppe Parlato’s bookThe Fascist Left, published in 2000, moves in this direction, digging intothe quicksand of fascist ideology.34 More precisely, he extracts one ofthe many pieces from the fascist ideological mosaic, believing it containsa certain historical coherence and should be studied seriously. This in

32. See Bongiovanni’s preface to Luca La Rovare, Storia del Guf (Turin: Boringh-ieri, 2003), pp. xxii-xxiii.

33. See Jens Petersen, “La nascita del concetto di ‘Stato totalitario’ in Italia,” inAnnali dell’Istitutio storico italo-germanico in Trento 1 (1975), pp. 143-168.

34. Giuseppe Parlato, La sinistra fascista (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2000). For a reviewof Parlato’s book, see Frank Adler, “Reconsidering Fascism,” in Telos 119 (Spring 2001),pp. 181-188.


why he uses the term “fascist Left,” rather than the more conventional“fascism of the Left.” It is less an examination of the Left within Musso-lini’s movement than one which looks at a distinct group that, so tospeak, was in Fascism but not of Fascism.

The main hypothesis of Parlato’s book is that a Left existed in Italianfascism, but it was neither a “party within a party” or a “current” structuredorganizationally or ideologically by the PNF nor could it be understood assimply one of the “souls” of the complex fascist movement. Instead, it wasan ideological orientation that, not fully articulated or fully self-consciousin the men who embodied it, nevertheless formed a distinct “category” ofthe Italian Left. As Parlato asserts, the fascist Left, by the end of theregime, had acquired “a diffuse awareness . . . of being heirs to anothercategory, that of ‘the Italian national Left,’ which began with Garibaldi,Mazzini, and Pisacane, and then headed toward a non-international formof socialism, then went on to revolutionary syndicalism. Fusing class andnation, it inserted itself, not without difficulties and frustrations, within thefascist stream.” Evidently, this presents “a line which does not begin withfascism, but mixes with fascism in the certainty that Mussolini’s move-ment could realize the historical aspirations of a democratic and progres-sive movement, purified of Marxism.” The history of this Left did not endon July 25, 1943 or April 25, 1945, but continued afterwards as a currentwithin the neo-Fascist MSI, and also in the margins, and in some individ-ual cases, at the core of the socialist and communist Left. This thesis isundoubtedly original, stimulating, and, in the eyes of many, even provoca-tive. Before addressing to whom this “provocation” might be directed, letus consider the validity of the concept of the “fascist Left.”

Parlato is certainly aware of the extreme vagueness and elasticity ofthe categories “Left” and “Right,” especially with reference to the politicalculture of the 19th and early 20th century. In Italy, the counterpoising ofsocial and political forces of the so-called belle époque was based on dif-ferent interpretations of the recent past, especially the significance ofnational unification, as well as to different hopes for the imminent futureof the young nation. The steady growth of workers’ organizations and thesocialist party produced a political cleavage around the social question,pitting the armed bourgeoisie against the armed proletariat. On top of thesocial question, however, was overlaid the national question, even beforethe outbreak of the WWI, which would obviously dramatize the latter,reversing the terms of political discourse. Revolution or conservation:these were the alternatives that monopolized not only political conflict, but

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also historiographical disputes during the first 20 years of the 20th century.Perhaps most importantly, it became a way of interpreting the Risorgi-mento, as well as the positive and negative myths built around it. Manyauthors, such as Alfredo Oriani, Piero Gobetti, Dino Grandi, and AngeloOliviero Olivetti, wrote about the brief history of united Italy. It is at thisvery point where the division begins on different ways of interpreting theunification process, different judgments made about its protagonists, andespecially different ways of embracing a future for the nation. One becamea revolutionary or a conservative, even in the way recent history was read.Nationalists and socialists placed themselves among the “revolutionaries,”but among the “conservatives” there were also socialists, and in numbersno smaller than the liberals.

Parlato’s book, in large measure, questions the standard historicalreading of an “Italian ideology,” especially in its most recent version, i.e.,that of Ernesto Galli della Loggia who, through the person of Oriani, readsinto the idea of a Risorgimento “a series of petty-bourgeois, anti-workermyths and dispositions.”35 There exists a Risorgimento “mythography”different from the one Gentile constructed on a “spiritualist” reading ofMazzini and Gioberti’s ideas — the one on which fascism would seek tolegitimize itself. This particular interpretation was advanced within theworld of revolutionary syndicalism, which held that there was a Risorgi-mento popolare that had been defeated by a Risorgimento borghese.Mazzini and Gioberti, Pisacane and Cavour should not be thrown togetherin an ecumenical parterre of “prophets” of independence and “fathers” ofa united Italy. The recourse to Mazzini and to mazzinianesmo is funda-mental to construction of a historical and political identity on the part ofthe fascist Left. The question to ask is whether this operation was success-ful and, above all, self-consciously produced by its protagonists.

The problem here concerns grounding a concept such as that of the “fas-cist Left.” First, it is important to identify those who actually recognizedthemselves in this way, as opposed to those who are inserted into this cate-gory by others. Here, one should add a chronological criterion, and try toidentify the subjects in question before, during and after the fascist experi-ence. What becomes clear is that revolutionary syndicalists and anarco-syn-dicalists filled the ranks of the fascist Left between the end of WWI and theend of the 1920s. Then there emerged a second generation of syndicaliststhat confronted them with a new myth nourished by the regime: corporatism.

35. Ernesto Galli Della Loggia, “Le lontane origini dell’ideolgia italiana,” in NuovaStoria Contemporanea 6 (Nov.-Dec. 1999), p. 15.


After the first half of the 1930s, centered around the syndicalist/corporativ-ism debate, a third generation of young university students and syndicalleaders emerged, who held secondary or marginal positions. Among these,quite a few migrated toward communism, satisfying the thirst for a Weltan-schauung that fascism had provoked, but could not satisfy. On this matter, itis instructive to carefully consider the chapter “Labor as Myth and Ideol-ogy,” which underscores the envy and desire for emulation, as well as thecompetition with communism and Marxist doctrine, i.e., sentiments thatespecially animated students in the GUF.

Secondly, it is important to distinguish between an internal and anexternal viewpoint from which to observe the objects of this study. Theimpression one gets after reading Parlato’s book is that, from the stand-point of subjects who comprised the fascist Left, there was little aware-ness of having formed a homogeneous group. Parlato calls attention to thefact that during the RSI period (after September 1943), as well as duringthe regime, the fascist Left could not even be considered a “current,”either on the basis of having a unified strategy or sharing an organizationalperspective, despite having in common a language and certain aspirations.

The historian’s external view can render relatively uniform and com-pact an aggregate of aspirations, mental attitudes, and ideal projects. Theempirical significance of this synthesis, insofar as the individuals in ques-tion never constituted themselves as a unified and coherent group, is opento question. The synthesis is acceptable only on the condition that it is notunderstood to be a history of fascism “seen from the Left,” or not onlythat. Paradoxically, one is presented as well with the detailed history of abroad and diffuse component of 20th century Italian political culture,namely, the Left. It remains to be determined how “heretical” this compo-nent was and, above all, how it could be understood after WWII, giventhe divisions which took place. Parlato offers a useful map in the conclud-ing chapter, broadening the analytic frame beyond the neo-fascist“national Left” and beyond the 1970s. Certainly, during the past 20years, ideological borders have once again intersected, and the end of theCold War buried certain issues, while removing others from mothballs.Parlato will be called upon to complete the difficult and inevitable task ofproving the hypothesis of this book: does a Left in Italy exist which, inthe name of synthesizing labor and the nation, better than any other ideo-logical current, embody a “third way”? At the moment, all one can say isthat its syncretic nature has led it to oscillate between Right and Left,contributing to the connotation of such terms as “socialist-national” and

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syndicalist-revolutionary” an unstable and eclectic fascist ideology.In his conclusion, Parlato also contributes an original and interesting

piece on Ernesto Massi,36 the intellectual leader of the national Left. Situ-ated usually within the neo-fascist orbit, but with periodic external projec-tions, Massi gives an interpretation of the genesis of socialism in Italysimilar to the account offered by Parlato. The question is how valid is thishypothesis, which proposes to look back at an important part of Italianhistory through the lens of a so-called national Left? How and in whatmeasure can one accept the validity of a thesis that sees in Italy a consis-tent, if a bit confused “national” and non-Marxist tradition of the ItalianLeft, one that has been anti-bourgeois and popular. In some respects, thethesis is convincing, and a few studies on the subject already exist. Noneof which, however, go so far as to sustain, as does Massi, that the Left inItaly was born national, whether in its Mazzini or Garibaldi version, bothmarked by irredentism and interclassism, while the Marxist, classicist,internationalist Left emerged only after 1882, with the establishment ofthe socialist party.

IV. Fascism and ModernityThe question whether fascism is modern or anti-modern has been

brought up regularly since October 28, 1922, Mussolini’s March onRome. Reviewing Luigi Salvatorelli’s 1923 book, Nazionalfascismo,37

Giovanni Ansaldo38 rejected the idea that the fascist movement emergedfrom the “humanistic” Milanese lower middle classes during the yearsbefore its triumph. Fascism was rather a product of industrial culture: ayouthful, athletic, technological, futurist flirt with “Americanism.” Auto-mobiles and great new highways, inaugurated with great fanfare, fasci-nated large segments of the urban petty-bourgeoisie, not rich enough toactually own a car, but intoxicated with the idea of speed. In fact, Musso-lini’s conspicuous display of himself in automobiles and airplanes wascalculated to appeal to this fashionable and popular sentiment. But thiswas only one side of fascism, which as a pragmatic, opportunistic phe-nomenon appealed to different groups, and did so for different reasons.After the March on Rome, the need of securing the broadest base of supportinduced Mussolini and his entourage to embark upon a contradictory course

36. Ernesto Massi, Nazione socile. Scritti politici 1948-76 (Rome: ISC, 1990).37. Luigi Salvatorelli, Nazionalfascismo (Turin: Gobetti, 1923).38. G. Ansaldo, “Il fascismo e la piccola borghesia tecnica,” reprinted in Costnzo

Casucci, Il fascismo. Antologia di scritti critici (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1982), pp. 370-71.


that for some (the traditional elites) meant preserving the status quo, whilefor others (those partially or fully excluded by previous regimes) it meant afundamental change favoring the social promotion of the non-elites.

If one explores the management of relations between the countrysideand the city, as well as the related problems of urbanization and ruraliza-tion, the contradictions between innovation and conservation becomeimmediately apparent. Ideologically, “urbanism” was defined as a diseaseand “ruralism” as its cure. In practice, fascist ruralism was the rhetoricalcover for an only partially successful attempt at controlling the country-side, an attempt at “immobilization” or “crystalization,” while actuallyrestructuring and expanding the cities. At the same time, an analysis ofurban-rural relations brings to light a strong continuity of fascist policywith the mentality and values of large segments of Italian society as itexisted before WWI. Ansaldo and other acute observers noted how fas-cism, better than its political competitors, responded to the exigencies of“masses” who now were entering upon the political scene, and these“masses” included not only factory workers and those working in thefields, but also artisans, shop owners, and numerous service sector work-ers, no less than students whose studies were interrupted by the war.

Anthropologically, one could consider the desire to forge a “newman,” a criterion some have used to distinguish the ideology and practiceof Italian fascism from that of the German Nazism, as well as their differ-ent relations with modernity. From 1977 on, Mosse declared his agree-ment with De Felice’s affirmation on how Mussolini was literally drunkwith the idea of creating “a new type of citizen” and the prospects ofbeing able to modify collective mentalities and customs. De Feliceobserved that this was “a typically democratic idea which was illuminist,of a Rousseauian character,” rooted in the radical Left formation of Mus-solini’s youth (and not in the sort of radical Right formation that led toNazism).39 Mosse argued that, conversely, the Nazi concept of man wasfundamentally static, characterized by a regressive representation of his-tory, and marked by the decay and corruption of antique virtues inherentin the superior Germanic “Aryan” race contaminated by other inferior,parasitic races. By way of contrast, Italian fascist ideology, though notwithout contradictions, manifested a marked openness to modernity.40

De Felice was aware of the presence of a strong “ruralist component”

39. De Felice, Intervista sul fascismo, pp. 53-54.40. George Mosse, Nazism: A Historical and Comparative Analysis of National

Socialism, ed. by Michael Ledeen (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1978).

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and the heated “controversy against urbanism and super industrialism,”but he felt that it was a vague preoccupation and above all not limited tothe new fascist political class. Rather, it was the heritage of a “petty-bour-geois democratic tradition” linked to the pre-existing political culture.There seemed to be agreement between the positions of De Felice andMosse, though more in appearance than substance. In De Felice’s 1975Intervista, he said that the question of relations between fascism andNazism finished with particularly “tangled results,” and Rosario Romeoexpressed the view that the thesis according to which fascism looked tothe future, while Nazism looked to the past, seemed to belong more to theinterviewer, Michael Ledeen, than to anyone he interviewed. So the iden-tity of views between the two great historians might have been, in goodmeasure, due to the manner in which Ledeen conducted separate inter-views with them. The questions were often a reframing of Ledeen’s ownviews, to which little more than assent was given in the answers. In hislater work, De Felice made the distinction between fascism and Nazismless rigid, acknowledging that in both an idea of the future existed, eventhough Nazism was founded on a “cyclical millennium” and fascism onthe ability “young peoples to be reborn.”

Therefore, if the comparison between the two right-wing totalitari-anism regimes still needs clear parameters and persuasive indicators, sotoo does the relation of both to modernity. One has the impression thatthe historical knot will be destined to remain tied, because fascism is anamalgam of both modern and anti-modern elements; the same is true forNazism, leading Jeffrey Herf to coin a seductive definition during the1980s: “reactionary modernism.” Such definitions might be fascinating,but really fail to add much to our grasp of the specific historical charac-teristics of the objects of analysis.

The relation between fascism and modernity has emerged as a popu-lar theme in Italian historiography. Ludovico Incisa di Camerana andDomenico Settembrini are two of the most original Italian scholars whointerpret “fascist modernity.” American specialists, such as A. JamesGregor and Stanley Payne, critically studied the thesis of Incisa di Cam-erana, a former Italian ambassador to Venezuela and Argentina, whowrote a book in 1969 (under the pseudonym Ludovico Garfruccio) enti-tled L’industializzazione tra nazionalismo e rivoluzione.41 It was an

41. Ludovico Garuccio, L’industrializzazione tra nazionalismo e rivoluzione (Bolo-gna: Il Mulino, 1969). Recently, Stanley Payne wrote that this was “perhaps the most seri-ous attempt to understand fascism through comparative analysis of modernization.” See hisA History of Fascism, 1914-45 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1974).


attempt to explain the genesis of Italian fascism as a response to the dis-integrating effects produced by the coming of the industrial revolution,developing an argument that had been advanced earlier by the Americanscholar A. F. K. Organski.42

Incisa di Camerana’s 1969 volume intended to identify the fascistphenomenon (Italian fascism, National Socialism, and even certain move-ments that emerged after WWII) with particular stages of development,marking the transition from agricultural to industrial societies.43 He laterreturned to this theme, comparing his work with studies that were pub-lished later. He then seemed more reluctant than in the past to extend thecategory of fascism, though he remained convinced of the basic validity ofhis interpretative approach. Back in 1971, he had presented fascist ideol-ogy as a political formula capable of “healing the dualism” which toreapart Italian society in the first decades of the 20th century. Incisa di Cam-erana was not referring so much to WWI, the “big event” which raisedexpectations and vain hopes of regeneration, but rather to the industrial“take-off” that both mobilized and demobilized productive relations. Thematerial and psychological uncertainties, provoked by a phase of intenseindustrialization, needed relief in the form of ideologies and actions aimedat repairing the violent fracture between traditional and modern societies.

The ruling elites in Italy above all were unable to construct legitimat-ing narratives; some did not even think this was a terribly urgent politicalproblem. The inability to manage this difficult phase of transition becameabundantly obvious after the beginning of WWI. The intervention beganin some sectors almost as a wager, attempting to find in the total mobiliza-tion brought on by war the cement to complete the nationalization of themasses, above all in the countryside, and thus to heal the wounds pro-voked by the conflict. To the alienation produced by the phenomena ofindustrialization and urbanization, one thought of responding with thelure of a new national identity forged in the solidarity of the trenches. Thereality of war was far different: an inexhaustible loss of life and the fray-ing of nerves that produced new and more grave forms of alienation. Butit was precisely in the crucible of the trenches that a new generationemerged which could no longer be represented adequately by the socialand political forces of pre-war Italy. It was not only officers of high rank

42. A.F.S. Organski, The Stages of Political Development (New York: Knopf,1965).

43. Ludovico Garruccio, “Le tre età del fascismo”, reprinted in Ludovico Incisa diCamerana, Fascismo, popolismo, modernizzazione (Rome: Pellicani, 2000), pp. 235-58.

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that found themselves in a new, ambiguous political space, one filled bestby Mussolini’s fascists.

In this phase of profound social inequality and existential suffering,there was a need for an “ideology of transition” which could paternalisti-cally reassure the restless masses of veterans. This paternalism wasunavoidable, because more than half of Italian society was still composedof peasant families, and the rest came from urban families where tradi-tional culture still was influential. Departing from De Felice’s first intui-tions regarding the active and central role of the intermediate strata, butanticipating the thesis of the “emerging middle classes,” Incisa di Camer-ana in 1971 wrote a profound and penetrating analysis on the socialclasses who were the backbone of the origins of fascism: “In this petty-bourgeois sphere, the matrix of fascism is also biologically circum-scribed; fascism always is the expression of a young petty-bourgeois gen-eration. The middle class is generally integrated, at least partially, in theestablishment, and does not normally tend toward rebellion or seek todestroy the social order. Youth is the unique group within the petty-bour-geoisie that is open for an adventure that promises hegemony. Such hege-mony could arrive in pre-industrial fascism with the simple substitution ofa new ruling class for the old one. In a transitional fascism, it could arriveby interposing a new class between the advanced socio-economic blocand the backward one. In post-industrial fascism, it could arrive with anew condominium of power. In each of these three cases, the main aim isnational unity, or rather a complete integration of the country. The “non-classicist” or “aclassist” mentality of the petty-bourgeoisie, its economicneutrality between capitalism and the proletariat, assures fascism an ideo-logical flexibility that allows for almost any type of alliance.”

Incisa di Camerana’s reasoning departs from an interpretation of fas-cism as an international political and ideological phenomenon that canapply to any society in the transition to industrialization. One must under-stand the diversity, sometimes very profound, between individual nationalcases. The author remains convinced that the transition from agriculturalto industrial societies produce “predisposing conditions” that make veryattractive certain ideological formulae, and of these Italian fascism surelyrepresents the best 20th century prototype. Here, it would be interesting toexplore how and where Incisa di Camerana would situate the genesis ofBolshevism in Russia in 1917. He wrote very little on the subject, otherthan a few sentences more than thirty years ago: “Fascism could bedefined as the dictatorship an emerging petty-bourgeois generation, calling


for national homogeneity. The dictatorship of this petty-bourgeoisie isbased on the historical impossibility of realizing a dictatorship of the pro-letariat. In Russia, the only country where this was to have happened, andwhere no petty-bourgeoisie existed, Stalin surreptitiously created one (thetechnical and bureaucratic elites), and then invested them with power.”44

In any case, Incisa di Camerana certainly developed a suggestivethesis that also had the merit, during the 1970s, of attacking what hadbeen a social science axiom: the claim that modernization was synony-mous with democratization. His work has only come to attentionrecently, thanks to a republication of essays written during the 1960s onfascism, populism, and modernization.

The other Italian scholar who in recent years has focused on the rela-tionship between fascism and modernity is Domenico Settembrini, a spe-cialist in modern and contemporary political thought. To those whowould angrily attack the very connection between fascism and modernity,Settembrini replies that, above all, one has to specify what type of moder-nity or which dimension of the process of modernization is of relevance.If one makes reference to economic modernity or industrial capitalism,the attitude of fascism would be highly controversial. But, referring tospecifically to politics, Settembrini argues, there is little doubt. Politicalmodernity, understood as the progressive entry of all adult members ofsociety into the spheres of participation and decisions-making, occursthrough two paths that, if in some cases seem destined to converge, tendin reality to diverge more and more, leading to counterpoised outcomes.45

Both Settembrini and Incisa di Camerana highlight the Jacobin andromantic roots of the ideology and culture (intended in an anthropologi-cal sense) of fascism. With this, they have reaffirmed the dominant trendin studies issuing from the Anglophone academic world, but add greaterprecision with respect to the boundaries of time, space, and significancewithin which similar ideological genealogies can be studied. Settembriniargues that the two paths that historically led to the entry of the massesinto the political life of nation states between the 19th and 20th centuriesactually began almost simultaneously during the last quarter of the 18thcentury. One originated with the American revolution and led directly toan individualistic, representative democracy. The other began with theFrench revolution of 1789, leading directly to what could be called

44. Ludovico Incisa di Camerana, Le tre età del fascismo, p. 255.45. Domenico Settembrini, “Fascismo e modernità,” in A. Campi, Che cos’è il fas-

cismo, p. 376.

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“totalitarian democracy,” borrowing the term made famous in 1954 byJacob Talmon. With specific reference to Italian fascism, Settembriniargues that its ideological essence, the conception of the world whichanimated the political action of Mussolini and his followers, was “ananti-individualist modernity. It character was “decisively anti-liberal, butnot at all anti-democratic.”46

This mirage is not dissimilar to that followed by Lenin and his suc-cessors: expelling the “nut” of modernity, i.e., the principal of individualautonomy, but conserving the shell of innovation and technical efficiencythat the creativity of competitive individuals had produced. The problemis that without autonomy individual creativity disappears, amply demon-strated by the misery of populations that had been subjected to the domi-nation of collectivist regimes in the Soviet Union and its satellite states.Mussolini’s regime presented characteristics partially different, becauseMussolini was aware of what was happening in Soviet Russia, first withwar communism, then with collectivization and forced industrialization.This also explains the compromising nature of the fascist regime in deal-ing with industrial capitalism, along with other obvious factors, such asthe higher level of economic development already reached by Italy, acountry fully inserted in the West of those times, and the outcome of a warthat, although victorious, had been costly in human energy and materials.

The appeal to an Italian “nation,” recalling both myth and tradition,performed in fascist ideology an important inclusive, aggregative function.One thought of the Risorgimento and the significance this had in the cul-ture, not only to the elites, but also to the middle and popular classes ofItaly at the time. The appeal to the “nation,” regenerated from the blood-bath of WWI and the fascist “revolution,” was a highly effective rhetoricalstrategy to heal vast strata of the population. Settembrini notes that the“nation,” unlike an “international class of the exploited,” is a mythical cre-ation, but: “one which by is very nature makes an appeal to the past, to tra-ditions, to the cult of ancestors, presented, certainly, as an entity superiorto that of particular individuals, groups and classes. Precisely on this basis,it has the pretext, not of negating, but instead incorporating, even in a sub-ordinating manner, all of this social reality, including the entire class struc-ture from workers of all kinds to large-scale employers.”47

This ideology combined rhetoric with a shrewd policy of state assis-tance and social security. It found favor among masses uprooted from

46. Ibid., p. 380.47. Ibid., p. 380.


their own traditions and from their own sources of well-being by WWIand then the crisis related to postwar industrial conversion. A similar sit-uation touched almost all of the Western democracies, which experi-enced authoritarian temptations and strong state intervention, especiallyafter the Wall Street crash of 1929.

It is useful to cite an expression used by Incisa di Camerana, the“epochal dimension of modernity” that fascism, beginning with Musso-lini, sought to represent and impose on the entire Italian population. It wasthat dimension that fascinated many Italian and European intellectuals,young and old alike. The challenge of fascism, which is in some wayssimilar to that of Nazism and communism, consisted in substituting for alogic based on the individual a logic based on the “collective subject,” asubject that rarely, if ever, is capable of constituting a unitary, unambigu-ous will. Without will, there is no effective subject, but only an indistinctmass manipulated by a closed elite and subjugated to a charismatic leader.As Settembrini says: “For these reasons fascism, or at least its ideology, isequally invoked as a category by those who, on the one hand, wouldreduce it to a movement against modernity in all its aspects, beginningwith industrialization, to those, such as A. James Gregor, on the other,who see in fascism the prototype of a fully rational developmental dicta-torship. In reality . . . the originality of fascist ideology, the spring thatdetermines its internal dynamic, resides in the very pretext of succeedingto be one and the other at the same time.”48

According to Settembrini’s interpretation, fascism is ambivalent withrespect to modernity. This is understandable if one considers the fact thatliberalism and democracy, as ideologies and as ideals, remained largelyseparated during the course of two centuries. A separation artificiallymaintained by groups and political forces which were, in some cases,interested in maintaining a status quo and, in others, determined to over-turn it in favor of new models of society. During the 20th century, Europesaw many cases of this latter type.

These considerations by Settembrini have found an echo in StanleyPayne’s recent History of Fascism, for whom the triumph of an earlierhedonistic and consumerist materialism gave way, during the course of the20th century, to the call for asceticism and revolutionary idealism, whetherfascist or communist. In this vein, Settembrini argues: “Fascism, as an ide-ology that accomplished sincere adhesion, genuine enthusiasm, and heroic

48. Ibid, p. 386.

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dedication swept away values that it obviously considered to be anti-val-ues, values that were held out as targets to attack: individualist democracyswept away by an organic democracy, market capitalism swept away bycorporatism, the quest for happiness swept away by the quest for virtue.”49

This raises a vexing question of contemporary concern: are hedonisticindividualism and its exportation any longer adequate responses to thenew threats that face Western democracies? As with any anti-virus, mightnot its model of individualist consumption contain a few viral elements ofits own? Surely the history of fascism would suggest that the asceticismof the masses always results from the rule of the few. In fact, it is nothingless than a mirror where the hedonism of the few is reflected for all to see.

49. Ibid., p. 399.

Recent Italian Historiography on Italian Fascism

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