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 is
relatively brief and only the work of select Italian scholars can be consid-
ered. Not all the published literature on fascism could be taken into
account, 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 presents
a 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 fascist
regime, and those concerning the relation between fascism and modernity.
Before beginning, it is necessary to clarify some criteria; first, even if
an elaboration of a general theory of fascism is the ultimate objective, this
discussion will be limited to Italian fascism, sometimes referred to as
“paradigmatic fascism”2; second, even though selecting the beginning of
the 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 Italy
and 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.
15
16 DANILO BRESCHI

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 De
Felice. De Felice, the most prominent of Italian historians dealing with
Italian fascism, died in May 1996, but continued to have both a positive
and a negative influence on Italy’s never-ending historical and political
debate concerning the two decades that Mussolini’s regime was in
power.3 The negative influence was largely a consequence of the fears
and ill will of his critics. De Felice became the center of an ongoing
polemic that arose after the 1974 publication of the first part of the third
volume 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 conducted
with De Felice. Another book-interview, this time with the journalist Pas-
quale Chessa, added new polemics, which were exacerbated by rumors
circulating about the last, incomplete volume of De Felice’s Mussolini
biography, regarding the delicate subject of the 1943-45 “civil war.”4
This is not the place for a detailed reconstruction of the controversy
concerning 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 to
understand what it meant to study fascism in Italy during the years
between 1960 and 1990. First, it would be helpful to begin with some clar-
ification regarding the paramount role played by De Felice during this
period. De Felice gave interviews in which he intentionally provoked not
only the historiographic culture but, more generally, the political culture of
the Left, especially concerning the link between anti-fascism and democ-
racy. For example, in two interviews with Giuliano Ferrara, at the time a
journalist with Corriere della Sera, published during the second half of the
1980s, De Felice explicitly intended to intervene in the contentious politi-
cal debate concerning constitutional and institutional reforms proposed by
the former Italian Socialist Party leader, Bettino Craxi. He spoke of the
need to overcome principled positions, stuck in the immediate post-WWII
3. See the special issue of Annali della Fondazione Ugo Spirito 1998, which
included papers presented at two conferences in Rome and in Milan in the Fall of 1997
dedicated to the life and work of Renzo De Felice. See also Pasquale Chessa and
Francesco 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 by
Emilio Gentile, Luigi Goglia and Mario Missori.
 ITALIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY 17

period, and to stimulate new discussion concerning new foundations for the
Italian Republic. He presented himself as a liberal intellectual, intervening
in 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 of
the Berlin Wall, he was anticipating the degree to which the foundations
upon 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 complete
democratization of the Italian political system, still encumbered by the
remnants of fascist statism and based on the dated logic of civil war. Emilo
Gentile, 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-anticommunism
schema has waned considerably. For this reason as well, all the flaws in the
structure of the Constitution have emerged. It is also understandable that
the other great alternative, fascism/anti-fascism, also has fallen. It no longer
has 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 his
name 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 the
significance of his interpretations. More often than not, the polemics
degenerated into hostility toward De Felice. Several times, at the Univer-
sity of Rome, De Felice became a target of intimidating protests from
groups of students who sought to prevent him from teaching. A few
months before his death, someone threw two molotov cocktails at his
house.6 As Gentile observed:

To minimize the gravity of these attacks, to reduce them to exasperated

forms of legitimate critical dissent, and to ignore the fact that the polem-
ics against De Felice often had tones and expressions of disgraceful
intolerance, would be reprehensible, to say the least. Conversely, it
would be misleading to depict the victim of these attacks as an ostracized
historian, 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.
18 DANILO BRESCHI

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

Understandably, given the centrality of De Felice for the last two

decades, no review of Italian studies on fascism can ignore the historian,
his biography, and his research. The polemics over De Felice, Gentile
points out, will become part of history as well, allowing for a better dis-
tinction between what were expressions of legitimate and critical dissent
and of partisan ideological contempt. At this point, however, note should
be taken of a turning point in Italian debates on fascism that has taken
place during the past five years. De Felice has been “metabolized” by
many historians who, until recently, had opposed him; what at first
seemed scandalous has now substantially become a shared heritage.
Books that have been published since De Felice’s death often contain
testimonials 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 theoretical
outcome of De Felice’s thirty-year Mussolini biography project is of
inestimable importance. Much of what had earlier been dismissed and
labeled as “revisionism,” understood in an accusatory, defamatory sense,
is now commonly accepted.
There are two of De Felice’s contributions worthy of note: the first
may be considered totally shared; the second, in large measure. The first
is a distinction between “fascism as movement” and “fascism as a
regime” — the period which in 1926 marked an authoritarian or pre-total-
itarian turn. The second is a profound distinction between fascism and
Nazism — in terms of modernity, as well as of the limited heuristic utility
of “memory” from the Resistance period in reconstructing the history of
the Civil War (an affirmation that still provokes scandalous reactions).
Yet, such an affirmation was made by Pier Giorgio Zunino, a student of
Franco Venturi, who was a partisan combatant and an illustrious member
of the Party of Action.8 Zunino’s statement at the end of 2003 confirms
the observation that De Felice’s work has now been metabolized and has
become 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.
 ITALIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY 19

De Felice’s eight volumes are an authentic treasure. His Mussolini

biography provides an important basis to better understand recent Italian
history. One could almost say, at this point, that the work seems more
important than the person who wrote it.9
The first and even more authoritative recognition given to De Felice
was in 1995, when he was still alive. Norberto Bobbio, unquestionably
the most important and acclaimed exponent of the secular, anti-fascist
culture of the post-WWII period, said that: “the term ‘revisionism’ has
come to be used with a certain negative connotation, above all by anti-
fascists. Even those who have criticized his work cannot deny that, at
one 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, and
not meant to be a polemic.10
However, Bobbio’s words remained rather isolated until more
recently. From the beginning of the new century, there has been an
increase in temperate opinions from the Left and from other sectors that
once spoke with manifest prejudicial disgust as well as legitimate dis-
agreement. Prejudicial aversion has been reduced considerably and has
lost legitimacy and credibility. A changed political climate contributed to
this openness as well, specifically the principle of alternation in govern-
mental leadership, and the progressive acknowledgement by the political
and intellectual Left that the Right exists and can govern legitimately.
This acknowledgement was certainly not immediate, nor was it pacific, as
demonstrated 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, as
well as the “myths of how it was founded,” the imprimatur of the Left has
been influential and, in some ways, still is. Though rarely expressed, this
is reflected in De Felice’s work as well, given the incontrovertible nature
of some historical assessments supported by heavy documentary evi-
dence. Regarding other of De Filice’s theories, such as the one linking
fascism and the middle classes, a period of reflection has begun, which
has highlighted the limits and vagueness of certain concepts (especially
De Felice’s use of the term “consensus”).11
9. Nello Ajello, Interview with Pier Giogio Zunino, in La Repubblica (December
17, 2003).
10. Norberto Bobbio, Renzo De Felice, and Gian Enrico Rusconi, Italiani, amici
nemici (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 del
municipalismo delle scienze sociali (Bologna: CLUEB, 1993), pp. 126-41.
20 DANILO BRESCHI

With regard to the fascist period, it is important to add that, after the
fall of the Berlin Wall, it became important for the Italian communist Left
to revise the recent past, which had suddenly become uncomfortable and
embarrassing.12 A decisive role also was played by the post-fascist, if not
anti-fascist evolution (more accurately, an anti-fascist, anti-communism)
of the Italian political Right, which began at the Fiuggi Conference held
in early 1995 and symbolically concluded with a declaration of Alleanze
Nazionale 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 the
Italian Social Republic) was repudiated for its contribution to the violence
and the persecutions that tormented the first half of the 20th century.13
In a somewhat opposite, uncharacteristic process, the neo-fascist
Right and the communist Left quickly abandoned their extreme wings
within 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 and
administrative policy, but remained important symbolically for the pur-
poses of identity and mobilization — issues central to any political party
appealing to a mass constituency. Beyond his immediate political calcula-
tions and motivations, Fini’s most recent declarations about the Holocaust
and fascism have largely decentered the politics and polemics of the past
(which certainly does not suggest remaining ignorant or indifferent to the
values of freedom and democracy).
Since its beginning, fascism has elicited questions regarding the type
of dictatorship Mussolini and his black shirts incarnated: was it a case of
simple conservatism with a heavy dose of authoritarianism, a counter-
revolutionary reaction to the “two-year communist period” and the fear of
a wave of Bolshevism, or was it the first form of totalitarianism, which
would 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 into
the 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 PCI
secretary Achille Occhetto.
13. After his return from Israel, Fini gave this reply to criticism coming from within
his party: “And if the Holocaust represented absolute evil, that applies as well to the acts of
fascism that contributed to the Holocaust. We know that the complex history of fascism
has many other moments too, but if we wish those to be recognized by all Italians without
the usual accusations of historical revisionism, it is indispensable for us to be intransigent
in denouncing the misdeeds and the tragedies.” See Secolo d’Italia (November, 28, 2003).
 ITALIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY 21

considering a definition of fascism, one should begin by taking seriously

the words of its creator and undisputed leader. On June 22, 1925, in his
closing address to the fourth (and last) PNF national convention, Musso-
lini declared: “What do we want? Something superb: we want Italians to
choose! 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 over
a 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, becoming
truly 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 scholars
in the US.15 In his recent writings and public speeches, Gentile has per-
sistently underscored the totalitarian nature of fascist ideology, the fascist
party, and of the entire fascist regime. However, he does this by using
arguments which, though richly cited, are not free of contradictions and
some empirical limits indirectly highlighted in the historiography that
emerged more or less in the same period. With reference to the ideologi-
cal nature of fascism, which has never been unambiguously identified or
classified, an important question was raised during the 1980s by Zeev
Sternhell: Is fascism a phenomenon of the Left or the Right?16 Or does it
belong 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 during
the past 20 years, a volume published in 2000 bears a distinctive approach
that holds out rich prospects for future research. Giuseppe Parlato, like
Emilio Gentile, belongs to the heterogeneous and eclectic “De Felice
clan.” 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 the
year 2000, including some works from previous years. The choice of material selected for
this 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 University
Press 1996), and Zeev Sternhell, Mario Sznajder and Maria Aserhi, The Birth of Fascist
Ideology (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
22 DANILO BRESCHI

“Left Fascism” is a very different formula than the familiar “fascism of

the Left,”18 and not only in the grammatical sense. This different
approach opens a new path, still to be explored, regarding the possibility
of a “national Left,” as distinguished from a Marxist Left (socialists and
communists) and a non-nationalist, non-Marxist Left (democratic radicals
and republicans), or perhaps even a fourth Left, if an anarchist one (which
is Italy originally was Bakunian and anti-Marxist) is considered.
Another important historiographical theme regarding fascism and its
nature, 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 1930s
by German-Jewish intellectual refugees.19 In Italy, once again, it was
largely 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 scholars
who were asking the question if and to what extent fascism was modern.
George L. Mosse was among the first scholars who established contact
with De Felice, and accepted the proposition according to which Italian
fascism drew upon progressive, Jacobin, and Enlightenment influences,
whereas German Nazism embraced a static, regressive, and definitely
anti-Enlightenment Weltanschauung.20 Notwithstanding this apparent
agreement between Mosse and De Felice, the “modern fascism/anti-mod-
ern fascism” dilemma never has been resolved, even though 20 years later
some studies emerged which highlighted important modernist aspects of
the Italian fascist regime. Indeed, it is still difficult to comprehend how it
could have been possible that modernity — at an ideological and practical
level — included brutal domination and culminated in hatred and racial
persecution, 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: Il
Mulino, 1974), pp. 357-387.
19. See Mariucia Salvati, Da Berlin a New York (Milan: Mondadori, 2000). This
volume, 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 sociologists
who had fled or were exiled from Nazi Germany (Emil Lederer, Theodor Geiger, Hans
Speier, Franz Neumann).
20. G.L. Mosse, Intervista sul nazismo, conducted by Michael Ledeen (Bari: Lat-
erza, 1997).
 ITALIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY 23

Notwithstanding diffuse disenchantment with respect to the virtues

of progress, it continues to be difficult to place the fascist dictatorship
among the historical expressions of modernity. To what measure is this
embarrassment the result of an ideological and customary prejudice
inherited from Western political thought, or does it have some founda-
tion in the effective anti-modern nature of fascism? Ambivalence and
ambiguity are words frequently used to define the ideology and accepted
practice of Mussolini’s movement and regime. It would be opportune at
this point to focus attention on this terminology, which some recently
published books facilitate.
Many other terms could be mentioned as examples of the loose knots
in the historiography of Italian fascism, and of fascism as an international
phenomenon. As an example, for a long time there was a question of
whether “fascism” can be talked about in a singular sense or whether as a
plural 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 of
larger 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 recently
posed this question in his book on theories and models of fascism, which
remains 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 methodological
tools significantly different from those used in traditional historiographic
research. In order to find Italian sociologists and political scientists who
have been concerned with the study of fascism, it would be necessary to
go back to the 1970s.22 In any case, the wide range of models and
approaches employed by Tarchi yields a minimal definition substantially
shaped 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 was
essentially 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 left
for Argentina in 1934, and later taught in Buenos Aires, Harvard, and finally Naples. See his
Sociologia della modernizzazione (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1975). See also the anthologies:
Luciano Cavalli, ed., Il fascismo nell’analisi sociologica (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1975) and
Edda Saccomani, ed., Le interpretazioni sociologiche del fascismo (Turin: Loescher, 1977).
24 DANILO BRESCHI

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 interpretative
effort. A peculiar “attitude towards life” would constitute a minimum
common 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, on
the one hand, with structural ones, especially the central role of the
state, on the other. Accordingly, fascist movements may be considered
in 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 which
are the foundations that guarantee a glorious future for the country;
3. combat parliamentary democracy founded on party pluralism, which
would divide the population;
4. aim to uproot conflict between classes — a concept counterpoised to a
cooperative or collaborative system based on collective solidarity;
5. accept and promote violence as an instrument of legitimate political
action when necessary to defend national interests;
6. affirm the primacy of politics over the economy with the intention of
placing capital and private property at the service of the community to
meet productivist aims;
7. defend the concept of a world which opposes spirituality to material-
ism, exalting the role of elites and charismatic personalities who put
themselves in the service of the national community;
8. are determined to establish a single-party regime directed toward
integrating, educating, and mobilizing the population in order to build a
new 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 should
be understood as the anthropological incubator of fascism and Nazism. In
this case, the starting point would have to be backdated and found within
Italian society during the so-called industrial take-off. This would be the
Italy 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.
 ITALIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY 25

emulated by various strata of society, especially the bourgeoisie (grand,

middle, and small), i.e. the class most drawn to fascist symbols and
myths). This cultural humus would then have to be considered a special
terrain, mined and ready to explode in all its violence by WWI, by the
thirst 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 main
point 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 volume
published by Laterza in 2002 entitled Fascism: History and Interpreta-
tion, does precisely this and, as suggested, marks a passage between the
past 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 contains
an essay originally published in Journal of Contemporary History enti-
tled “Fascism as a Political Religion.” The novelty of this volume is
therefore 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 book
because Italy was undergoing a period of “retrospective de-fascistization,”
or at least a tendency to remove from fascism “the attributes that belonged
to fascism and which characterized its historical individuality.” According
to 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 and
superstructures of Mussolini’s regime had less of an impact on Italian
society in the 1920s and 1930s. The identification of the nature and the
scope of fascism with Mussolinism, i.e. with the political vicissitudes of
the Duce, could be regarded as an index of “de-fascistization,” above all,
where such an identification removes or minimizes the responsibility both
of 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.
26 DANILO BRESCHI

Alberto De Stefani leads one to lose sight of the ideological investment

that fascism produced and extended through its 20-year reign, above all
among 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 tantamount
to not taking the fascist phenomenon seriously. On this point, Gentile’s
preoccupation is so strong that he risks advancing some theses that are
open to objection. For example, he claims with all “historical certainty, it
was not the Bolshevik revolution that opened Western Europe to totalitar-
ianism, followed by National Socialism, but the March on Rome, which
established the fascist regime and began the new experiment in political
domination.” Moreover, “everything happened through an autonomous
impulse, inherent in the very nature of fascism, and it even happened
when Mussolini publicly affirmed, at the end of 1921, that still talking of
a “Bolshevik danger in Italy was nonsense.”
As Gentile writes elsewhere, the very concept of totalitarianism was
born from and with fascism. Giovanni Amendola and Lelio Basso, two
opponents of the fascist regime, were the first to coin the terms “totalitarian”
and “totalitarianism.” Even more controversial is the affirmation that the
first historical totalitarian movement was fascism. Gentile’s definition of the
phenomenon is as follows: “Fascism is a modern political phenomenon. It is
nationalist and revolutionary, anti-liberal and anti-Marxist. It is organized in
a militia party and has a totalitarian conception of state politics.” The ques-
tion is: what is “a totalitarian conception of state politics?” Gentile answers
this 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. After
conquering power through legal or extra-legal means, it destroys or
transforms the pre-existing regime, constructing a single party-state
with the principal objective of conquering society, i.e., the subordina-
tion, integration, and homogenization of the governed. It does so on the
basis of a principled politicization of existence, whether individual or
collective, interpreted according to the categories, myths, and values of
a palingenetic ideology, made sacred in the form of a political religion,
with the aim of shaping individuals and the masses by means of an
anthropological revolution to regenerate human beings and create a
new man dedicated in body and soul to the revolutionary and imperial-
istic policies of the totalitarian party. The ultimate goal is to create a
 ITALIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY 27

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, is
purposefully incomplete, and this is why Gentile so frequently uses the
word “laboratory.” Another obvious question arises from Gentile’s defini-
tion: Does not the Bolshevik party, which took power in October 1917 and
maintained it throughout the difficult years of the Civil War, embody
wholly or in part the very same characteristics specified by Gentile? And, if
so, wasn’t Bolshevism also, from its beginnings, a totalitarian movement?
Certainly, it was not defined in these terms, nor was it intended as a
neologism. This was not necessary; Lenin and his followers firmly kept
to a consolidated and affirmed tradition in European political culture, i.e.,
Marxist socialism. The question which remains is whether, behind some
old 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, totally
subjected and integrated with a view aimed at drastic transformation.
Even though the final end was to create a community of free and equal
workers, able to organize and run things on its own in a manner no longer
requiring the presence of a state, this in no way alters what Bolshevism
was and became from the very beginning. Almost immediately, the ten-
dency emerged to concentrate power in the hands of a party responsible
for the revolution, eliminating all other parties and sources of opposition,
often through illegal means.
Domenico Fisichella, a political scientist whose work has focused on
totalitarianism, argues that in order to advance a classification it is neces-
sary to assume a comparative perspective, whereas Gentile studies only a
singular case. A historical comparison demonstrates how, even as one
struggles 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 in
law, notwithstanding some generic palingenetic and revolutionary aspira-
tions altogether common among politicians and intellectuals of opposing
sides. Bolshevism, however, put totalitarianism into practice, starting

26. Ibid., pp. 67-68.

28 DANILO BRESCHI

from the first months after its seizure of power, even in the structure given
to a party that soon would have to face a civil war.
The possibility remains open for an expansion and deformation of
the totalitarian category, as with all ideal types, even those constructed
according to the teachings and rigorous methodology of Max Weber. As
an ideal concept created by assembling diverse historical elements and
patterns, it could be based as well on a different selection or a different
interpretation 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 Italian
fascism or Soviet Communism, or even exclude all three in favor of
including Maoist China or who knows what other classification. This is
a risk inherent in putting too much faith into amalgamated categories
and 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 revealed
in German historiography on National Socialism. Authors of the caliber
of Martin Broszat and Norbert Frei, for example, sought to specifically
highlight the relationships established with German civil society during
the 1930s. In this regard, it is interesting to note how the historical and
even moral phenomena studied by Frei are analogous to those pursued by
Gentile in his study of Italian fascism, yet Frei takes a position on the use
of 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 the
ambition of the Nazi regime. In an analysis of Nazi ideology, it is there-
fore impossible not to use the concept of totalitarianism. However, if one
wishes to understand the internal development of the regime, as internal
politics — the daily life of the population, the culture, how industrial civ-
ilization in those years continued to unfold — then one could do very
well without the concept. To describe the internal development of soci-
ety, the concept of totalitarianism is not only unnecessary, it is almost
useless, if not truly irrelevant.”27
Indeed, the use (becoming an abuse) of the concept of totalitarianism
has 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 in
MondOperaio (May 1992), pp. 25-26.
 ITALIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY 29

Frei, taking into account the debate over “collective guilt” that had
marked the 1940s and 1950s, the theory of totalitarianism lessened a
sense of individual culpability for what had happened under National
Socialism. Applied to the Nazi phenomenon, the systematic recourse to
the category of totalitarianism resulted in a distorted misunderstanding of
history, analogous, in some ways, to that produced by Gentile with
respect to fascist Italy. In Germany, at least for a while, attention became
focused 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 chapter
rests on two basic assumptions. The first affirms that “a totalitarian political
system functions like a laboratory experimenting with an ‘anthropological
revolution’ trying to create a new kind of human being.” The second
reminds us that “the history of the totalitarian fascist experiment is a history
of continuous tension, resistance, and conflicts in institutions, in society, in
the collective conscious, and in fascism itself.” The tenth chapter develops
the first assumption, but the entire volume oscillates between the two affir-
mations, whereby one represents apparently a limitation, if not a refutation
of the other. Perhaps a solution to the contradiction might rest with the fol-
lowing formulation: fascism first is a movement, then a dictatorial mass
regime aimed at the totalitarian conquest of the state and of society. How-
ever, historically it was, in fact, an “authoritarian compromise” depicted
best by Massimo Legnani. In reality, “authoritative compromise” and
“totalitarian hypotheses” do not necessarily lie in a continuous line. They
are often forced to cohabit: the first one tends to neutralize the second, and
the path toward totalitarianization, which is mostly incomplete, and will
introduce strong tension in this “compromise.” Tension, not fractures.28
This appears to be the final interpretive outcome of Emilo Gentile’s 30
years of research, stimulatingly summarized in his book on the history and
interpretation of fascism. Alberto De Bernardi arrives at a substantially
similar 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 represent
itself as a totalitarian regime, as a new form of State organization in which
every aspect of life is under the control of the party-state which would

28. Massimo Legnani, “Sistema di potere fascista, blocco dominante, alleanze

sociali,” 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 desiderata
on the part of fascist leadership, a separate assessment must be made
regarding the policies actually put into practice at the national and local
levels, as well as their impact on society. De Bernardi’s research here
leads him to question the heuristic and explanatory limits of the totalitarian
paradigm: “It is true, however, that when this model is compared to the
concrete historical features of Italian fascism, something is missing. Not-
withstanding the will of the Duce and fascist leadership to realize their
totalitarian project, the fascist regime never actually succeeded in com-
pletely overcoming all the institutional, political, and social compromises
upon which Mussolini’s personal dictatorship was founded. As numerous
scholars have noted, the presence of a monarchy and a Constitution —
from which the very legitimacy of Mussolini’s government derived, and
not only in formal terms — actually facilitated the permanence of power
indispensable to monocratic control, pre-existing elements which fused
and 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 the
Duce — in stark contrast with a totalitarian system, where the singularity
of political command is paradigmatic. This was a problem as well within
the 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 about
Mussolini’s totalitarian “vocation.” His totalitarianism favored some, not
all, of the main distinctive characteristics of the ideal typical model, i.e.,
the charismatic head and related cult of personality, and the single militia
party. In other words, Mussolini’s dream of totalitarian fascism resembled
a 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, yearning
for that political, economic, and social mobility seen partially as a reality
and partially as a revolutionary promise during and above all after WWI.
It would be interesting to examine the totalitarian intent inherent in the
anti-Semitic campaign of 1938, and how independent and specific it
might have been with respect to the characteristically racist politics of
Nazi 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.
 ITALIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY 31

consensus at which Mussolini aimed was a nationalization of the masses. As

De Felice observed, it was not a coincidence that precisely during the years
when Mussolini tried to create a consensus, he returned to his studies of
Nietzsche. He was convinced that the great crisis that so heavily struck the
industrialized nations was not a transitory phenomenon, but rather a crisis of
the system itself. New persons were called upon to dominate a long-term cri-
sis and, accordingly, the emphasis of government action changed from the
arena of social institutions to that of human attitudes and emotions.”30
Mussolini’s anti-Semitism should therefore be interpreted as a “giro
di 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 this
process of identification and generalizing mass support for the regime, as
De Felice said, “became ever more effective and vast, not as it politicized
itself, but rather as it was depoliticized, sinking its roots less and less in
adhesion to the PNF (that each day lost prestige and provoked more dis-
satisfaction), but instead more and more in the myth of Mussolini and of
Italy finally ‘on the march’.”31 Recent analyses have arrived at similar
conclusions, for example, Salvatore Lupo’s study of the administrative
structure of the PNF. Lupo demonstrates how Mussolini accomplished a
systematic 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 a
parallel fascist state to the advantage of the political and social institutions
of the pre-existing liberal state. He did this at the very moment in which
he 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 with
the 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 — a
concept 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 and
meticulous reconstruction of the GUF (Gruppi Universiari Fascisti),

30. M.A. Ledeen “Il fascismo e la nazionalizzazione della masse: dal consenso all
politica 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.
32 DANILO BRESCHI

goes so far as to claim that, as a concrete phenomenon, totalitarianism

never really existed, except perhaps as a contradictory and changing
form 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 totalitarian
intentionality. There is a significant difference between underlining the
dynamic historical nature of totalitarianism, on the one hand, and
assuming 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 the
heuristic value of the term “totalitarianism.” A reconstruction of its ori-
gins would indicate that it was used during two phases of history, mainly
as 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 term
fulfilled a pro-American and pro-Western ideological function against
the 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, one
must share some of Bongiovanni’s skepticism, especially if the term is
to 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, certainties
have deteriorated and historians have begun to uncover a much more
confused and tangled cultural-political profile. Giuseppe Parlato’s book
The Fascist Left, published in 2000, moves in this direction, digging into
the quicksand of fascist ideology.34 More precisely, he extracts one of
the many pieces from the fascist ideological mosaic, believing it contains
a 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,” in
Annali dell’Istitutio storico italo-germanico in Trento 1 (1975), pp. 143-168.
34. Giuseppe Parlato, La sinistra fascista (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2000). For a review
of Parlato’s book, see Frank Adler, “Reconsidering Fascism,” in Telos 119 (Spring 2001),
pp. 181-188.
 ITALIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY 33

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 to
speak, was in Fascism but not of Fascism.
The main hypothesis of Parlato’s book is that a Left existed in Italian
fascism, but it was neither a “party within a party” or a “current” structured
organizationally or ideologically by the PNF nor could it be understood as
simply one of the “souls” of the complex fascist movement. Instead, it was
an ideological orientation that, not fully articulated or fully self-conscious
in the men who embodied it, nevertheless formed a distinct “category” of
the Italian Left. As Parlato asserts, the fascist Left, by the end of the
regime, had acquired “a diffuse awareness . . . of being heirs to another
category, that of ‘the Italian national Left,’ which began with Garibaldi,
Mazzini, and Pisacane, and then headed toward a non-international form
of socialism, then went on to revolutionary syndicalism. Fusing class and
nation, it inserted itself, not without difficulties and frustrations, within the
fascist stream.” Evidently, this presents “a line which does not begin with
fascism, 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 end
on July 25, 1943 or April 25, 1945, but continued afterwards as a current
within 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 is
undoubtedly original, stimulating, and, in the eyes of many, even provoca-
tive. Before addressing to whom this “provocation” might be directed, let
us consider the validity of the concept of the “fascist Left.”
Parlato is certainly aware of the extreme vagueness and elasticity of
the categories “Left” and “Right,” especially with reference to the political
culture of the 19th and early 20th century. In Italy, the counterpoising of
social and political forces of the so-called belle époque was based on dif-
ferent interpretations of the recent past, especially the significance of
national unification, as well as to different hopes for the imminent future
of the young nation. The steady growth of workers’ organizations and the
socialist party produced a political cleavage around the social question,
pitting the armed bourgeoisie against the armed proletariat. On top of the
social question, however, was overlaid the national question, even before
the 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
34 DANILO BRESCHI

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. Many
authors, such as Alfredo Oriani, Piero Gobetti, Dino Grandi, and Angelo
Oliviero Olivetti, wrote about the brief history of united Italy. It is at this
very point where the division begins on different ways of interpreting the
unification process, different judgments made about its protagonists, and
especially different ways of embracing a future for the nation. One became
a 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 numbers
no smaller than the liberals.
Parlato’s book, in large measure, questions the standard historical
reading of an “Italian ideology,” especially in its most recent version, i.e.,
that of Ernesto Galli della Loggia who, through the person of Oriani, reads
into the idea of a Risorgimento “a series of petty-bourgeois, anti-worker
myths and dispositions.”35 There exists a Risorgimento “mythography”
different from the one Gentile constructed on a “spiritualist” reading of
Mazzini and Gioberti’s ideas — the one on which fascism would seek to
legitimize itself. This particular interpretation was advanced within the
world 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 together
in an ecumenical parterre of “prophets” of independence and “fathers” of
a united Italy. The recourse to Mazzini and to mazzinianesmo is funda-
mental to construction of a historical and political identity on the part of
the 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 recognized
themselves 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 to
identify 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 the
end of the 1920s. Then there emerged a second generation of syndicalists
that confronted them with a new myth nourished by the regime: corporatism.
35. Ernesto Galli Della Loggia, “Le lontane origini dell’ideolgia italiana,” in Nuova
Storia Contemporanea 6 (Nov.-Dec. 1999), p. 15.
 ITALIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY 35

After the first half of the 1930s, centered around the syndicalist/corporativ-
ism debate, a third generation of young university students and syndical
leaders 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, it
is instructive to carefully consider the chapter “Labor as Myth and Ideol-
ogy,” which underscores the envy and desire for emulation, as well as the
competition with communism and Marxist doctrine, i.e., sentiments that
especially animated students in the GUF.
Secondly, it is important to distinguish between an internal and an
external viewpoint from which to observe the objects of this study. The
impression 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 the
fact that during the RSI period (after September 1943), as well as during
the regime, the fascist Left could not even be considered a “current,”
either on the basis of having a unified strategy or sharing an organizational
perspective, 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. The
empirical significance of this synthesis, insofar as the individuals in ques-
tion never constituted themselves as a unified and coherent group, is open
to question. The synthesis is acceptable only on the condition that it is not
understood to be a history of fascism “seen from the Left,” or not only
that. Paradoxically, one is presented as well with the detailed history of a
broad 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, given
the 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 20
years, ideological borders have once again intersected, and the end of the
Cold War buried certain issues, while removing others from mothballs.
Parlato will be called upon to complete the difficult and inevitable task of
proving the hypothesis of this book: does a Left in Italy exist which, in
the 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 is
that its syncretic nature has led it to oscillate between Right and Left,
contributing to the connotation of such terms as “socialist-national” and
36 DANILO BRESCHI

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 Italy
similar to the account offered by Parlato. The question is how valid is this
hypothesis, which proposes to look back at an important part of Italian
history through the lens of a so-called national Left? How and in what
measure 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 Italian
Left, one that has been anti-bourgeois and popular. In some respects, the
thesis is convincing, and a few studies on the subject already exist. None
of which, however, go so far as to sustain, as does Massi, that the Left in
Italy was born national, whether in its Mazzini or Garibaldi version, both
marked by irredentism and interclassism, while the Marxist, classicist,
internationalist Left emerged only after 1882, with the establishment of
the socialist party.

IV. Fascism and Modernity

The question whether fascism is modern or anti-modern has been
brought up regularly since October 28, 1922, Mussolini’s March on
Rome. Reviewing Luigi Salvatorelli’s 1923 book, Nazionalfascismo,37
Giovanni Ansaldo38 rejected the idea that the fascist movement emerged
from the “humanistic” Milanese lower middle classes during the years
before its triumph. Fascism was rather a product of industrial culture: a
youthful, 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 to
actually own a car, but intoxicated with the idea of speed. In fact, Musso-
lini’s conspicuous display of himself in automobiles and airplanes was
calculated to appeal to this fashionable and popular sentiment. But this
was 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 support
induced 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.
 ITALIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY 37

that for some (the traditional elites) meant preserving the status quo, while
for others (those partially or fully excluded by previous regimes) it meant a
fundamental change favoring the social promotion of the non-elites.
If one explores the management of relations between the countryside
and the city, as well as the related problems of urbanization and ruraliza-
tion, the contradictions between innovation and conservation become
immediately apparent. Ideologically, “urbanism” was defined as a disease
and “ruralism” as its cure. In practice, fascist ruralism was the rhetorical
cover for an only partially successful attempt at controlling the country-
side, an attempt at “immobilization” or “crystalization,” while actually
restructuring and expanding the cities. At the same time, an analysis of
urban-rural relations brings to light a strong continuity of fascist policy
with the mentality and values of large segments of Italian society as it
existed 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 the
fields, 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 “new
man,” a criterion some have used to distinguish the ideology and practice
of 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 drunk
with the idea of creating “a new type of citizen” and the prospects of
being able to modify collective mentalities and customs. De Felice
observed 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 to
Nazism).39 Mosse argued that, conversely, the Nazi concept of man was
fundamentally static, characterized by a regressive representation of his-
tory, and marked by the decay and corruption of antique virtues inherent
in the superior Germanic “Aryan” race contaminated by other inferior,
parasitic races. By way of contrast, Italian fascist ideology, though not
without 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).
38 DANILO BRESCHI

and the heated “controversy against urbanism and super industrialism,”

but he felt that it was a vague preoccupation and above all not limited to
the 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 and
Mosse, though more in appearance than substance. In De Felice’s 1975
Intervista, he said that the question of relations between fascism and
Nazism finished with particularly “tangled results,” and Rosario Romeo
expressed the view that the thesis according to which fascism looked to
the future, while Nazism looked to the past, seemed to belong more to the
interviewer, Michael Ledeen, than to anyone he interviewed. So the iden-
tity of views between the two great historians might have been, in good
measure, due to the manner in which Ledeen conducted separate inter-
views with them. The questions were often a reframing of Ledeen’s own
views, to which little more than assent was given in the answers. In his
later work, De Felice made the distinction between fascism and Nazism
less rigid, acknowledging that in both an idea of the future existed, even
though Nazism was founded on a “cyclical millennium” and fascism on
the 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, so
too does the relation of both to modernity. One has the impression that
the historical knot will be destined to remain tied, because fascism is an
amalgam of both modern and anti-modern elements; the same is true for
Nazism, leading Jeffrey Herf to coin a seductive definition during the
1980s: “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 and
Domenico Settembrini are two of the most original Italian scholars who
interpret “fascist modernity.” American specialists, such as A. James
Gregor and Stanley Payne, critically studied the thesis of Incisa di Cam-
erana, a former Italian ambassador to Venezuela and Argentina, who
wrote 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 his
A History of Fascism, 1914-45 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1974).
 ITALIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY 39

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 American
scholar A. F. K. Organski.42
Incisa di Camerana’s 1969 volume intended to identify the fascist
phenomenon (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 later
returned to this theme, comparing his work with studies that were pub-
lished later. He then seemed more reluctant than in the past to extend the
category of fascism, though he remained convinced of the basic validity of
his interpretative approach. Back in 1971, he had presented fascist ideol-
ogy as a political formula capable of “healing the dualism” which tore
apart 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 raised
expectations and vain hopes of regeneration, but rather to the industrial
“take-off” that both mobilized and demobilized productive relations. The
material and psychological uncertainties, provoked by a phase of intense
industrialization, needed relief in the form of ideologies and actions aimed
at 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 political
problem. The inability to manage this difficult phase of transition became
abundantly obvious after the beginning of WWI. The intervention began
in 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 the
masses, above all in the countryside, and thus to heal the wounds pro-
voked by the conflict. To the alienation produced by the phenomena of
industrialization and urbanization, one thought of responding with the
lure of a new national identity forged in the solidarity of the trenches. The
reality 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. But
it was precisely in the crucible of the trenches that a new generation
emerged which could no longer be represented adequately by the social
and 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 di
Camerana, Fascismo, popolismo, modernizzazione (Rome: Pellicani, 2000), pp. 235-58.
40 DANILO BRESCHI

that found themselves in a new, ambiguous political space, one filled best
by 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 was
unavoidable, because more than half of Italian society was still composed
of 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, but
anticipating the thesis of the “emerging middle classes,” Incisa di Camer-
ana in 1971 wrote a profound and penetrating analysis on the social
classes 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 the
establishment, and does not normally tend toward rebellion or seek to
destroy 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 of
a new ruling class for the old one. In a transitional fascism, it could arrive
by interposing a new class between the advanced socio-economic bloc
and the backward one. In post-industrial fascism, it could arrive with a
new condominium of power. In each of these three cases, the main aim is
national unity, or rather a complete integration of the country. The “non-
classicist” or “aclassist” mentality of the petty-bourgeoisie, its economic
neutrality 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 can
apply to any society in the transition to industrialization. One must under-
stand the diversity, sometimes very profound, between individual national
cases. The author remains convinced that the transition from agricultural
to industrial societies produce “predisposing conditions” that make very
attractive certain ideological formulae, and of these Italian fascism surely
represents the best 20th century prototype. Here, it would be interesting to
explore how and where Incisa di Camerana would situate the genesis of
Bolshevism in Russia in 1917. He wrote very little on the subject, other
than a few sentences more than thirty years ago: “Fascism could be
defined as the dictatorship an emerging petty-bourgeois generation, calling
 ITALIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY 41

for national homogeneity. The dictatorship of this petty-bourgeoisie is

based on the historical impossibility of realizing a dictatorship of the pro-
letariat. In Russia, the only country where this was to have happened, and
where no petty-bourgeoisie existed, Stalin surreptitiously created one (the
technical and bureaucratic elites), and then invested them with power.”44
In any case, Incisa di Camerana certainly developed a suggestive
thesis that also had the merit, during the 1970s, of attacking what had
been a social science axiom: the claim that modernization was synony-
mous with democratization. His work has only come to attention
recently, thanks to a republication of essays written during the 1960s on
fascism, 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 who
would 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 to
specifically to politics, Settembrini argues, there is little doubt. Political
modernity, understood as the progressive entry of all adult members of
society into the spheres of participation and decisions-making, occurs
through two paths that, if in some cases seem destined to converge, tend
in reality to diverge more and more, leading to counterpoised outcomes.45
Both Settembrini and Incisa di Camerana highlight the Jacobin and
romantic roots of the ideology and culture (intended in an anthropologi-
cal sense) of fascism. With this, they have reaffirmed the dominant trend
in studies issuing from the Anglophone academic world, but add greater
precision with respect to the boundaries of time, space, and significance
within which similar ideological genealogies can be studied. Settembrini
argues that the two paths that historically led to the entry of the masses
into the political life of nation states between the 19th and 20th centuries
actually began almost simultaneously during the last quarter of the 18th
century. One originated with the American revolution and led directly to
an individualistic, representative democracy. The other began with the
French 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.
42 DANILO BRESCHI

“totalitarian democracy,” borrowing the term made famous in 1954 by

Jacob Talmon. With specific reference to Italian fascism, Settembrini
argues that its ideological essence, the conception of the world which
animated the political action of Mussolini and his followers, was “an
anti-individualist modernity. It character was “decisively anti-liberal, but
not 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 individual
autonomy, but conserving the shell of innovation and technical efficiency
that the creativity of competitive individuals had produced. The problem
is 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, because
Mussolini was aware of what was happening in Soviet Russia, first with
war 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 as
the higher level of economic development already reached by Italy, a
country fully inserted in the West of those times, and the outcome of a war
that, 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 of
Italy at the time. The appeal to the “nation,” regenerated from the blood-
bath of WWI and the fascist “revolution,” was a highly effective rhetorical
strategy 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 superior
to 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.
 ITALIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY 43

their own traditions and from their own sources of well-being by WWI
and 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, especially
after 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 was
that dimension that fascinated many Italian and European intellectuals,
young and old alike. The challenge of fascism, which is in some ways
similar to that of Nazism and communism, consisted in substituting for a
logic based on the individual a logic based on the “collective subject,” a
subject that rarely, if ever, is capable of constituting a unitary, unambigu-
ous will. Without will, there is no effective subject, but only an indistinct
mass manipulated by a closed elite and subjugated to a charismatic leader.
As Settembrini says: “For these reasons fascism, or at least its ideology, is
equally invoked as a category by those who, on the one hand, would
reduce it to a movement against modernity in all its aspects, beginning
with 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 that
determines its internal dynamic, resides in the very pretext of succeeding
to be one and the other at the same time.”48
According to Settembrini’s interpretation, fascism is ambivalent with
respect to modernity. This is understandable if one considers the fact that
liberalism and democracy, as ideologies and as ideals, remained largely
separated during the course of two centuries. A separation artificially
maintained 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, Europe
saw many cases of this latter type.
These considerations by Settembrini have found an echo in Stanley
Payne’s recent History of Fascism, for whom the triumph of an earlier
hedonistic and consumerist materialism gave way, during the course of the
20th century, to the call for asceticism and revolutionary idealism, whether
fascist or communist. In this vein, Settembrini argues: “Fascism, as an ide-
ology that accomplished sincere adhesion, genuine enthusiasm, and heroic

48. Ibid, p. 386.

44 DANILO BRESCHI

dedication swept away values that it obviously considered to be anti-val-

ues, values that were held out as targets to attack: individualist democracy
swept away by an organic democracy, market capitalism swept away by
corporatism, the quest for happiness swept away by the quest for virtue.”49
This raises a vexing question of contemporary concern: are hedonistic
individualism and its exportation any longer adequate responses to the
new threats that face Western democracies? As with any anti-virus, might
not its model of individualist consumption contain a few viral elements of
its own? Surely the history of fascism would suggest that the asceticism
of the masses always results from the rule of the few. In fact, it is nothing
less than a mirror where the hedonism of the few is reflected for all to see.

49. Ibid., p. 399.