Italian Fascism

Subterms

    Latest story

    63 Shares149 Views

    Pax Romana, a Fascist Peace

    by

    During World War I, Benito Mussolini ultimately became a strong interventionist, which caused his split from Italy’s Socialist Party. He believed that only participating in a war would trigger a successful revolution at home and create the “new man.” War, however, should also establish a new realm reminiscent of the Roman Empire.

    Expansionism would become a defining goal of the foreign policy of the Fascist regime. In his “Manifesto dei Fasci italiani di combattimento” (“Fascist Manifesto”), which was published in the Italian newspaper Popolo d’Italia on June 6, 1919, the future Duce briefly talked about his foreign policy plans. He argued that Italy would have to pursue a “peaceful expansion” in order to achieve its greatness — an idea that was shared by many nationalists and fascists before the March on Rome, including Paolo Pedani, the editor-in-chief of a fascist newspaper in Livorno.

    Fascism and Peace: Incompatible or Inseparable?

    READ MORE

    Later in 1921, however, Mussolini struck a more aggressive note and did not mention the word “peace” once: “The foreign policy program of fascism is in one word: expansionism. Whenever the interests of humankind are at stake, Italy has to be present. It’s also time to quit living off the glories of the past. Finally, we have to live, fight, and work for the great future.” However, when we examine subsequent speeches by fascist officials, including Mussolini, they continued to address military imperialism and a quest for peace simultaneously. In many texts, we can find a striking incongruence between militarism and a discourse on peace.

    But what was this “peace” Mussolini and the fascists had in mind? To understand their concept of a “peaceful” world order, we must first analyze their understanding of empire.

    Pax Romana

    In October 1935, Italy invaded Abyssinia and began its ruthless conquest of the East African country, prompting some historians to describe the use of poison gas and the aerial bombardment of civilians as genocidal warfare. Despite these war crimes, Mussolini stressed in his Proclamation of Empire in May 1936 the quintessence of peace: “This is an empire of peace, because Italy wants peace for itself and for all and decides to go to war only when forced by imperious, irrepressible necessities of life. Empire of civilization and humanity for all the people of Ethiopia. … In this supreme certainty, hold high, legionnaires, the signs, the steel and the hearts, to salute, after fifteen centuries, the reapportion of the Empire on Rome’s fatal hills.”

    In addition, archivist and intellectual Armando Lodolini did not deny the expansionary character of Rome’s imperial drive, but he stressed that duty, energy and work were at its root. Roman soldiers, according to Lodolini, were armed engineers and farmers, who conquered Africa to present it with the gift of their civilizing influence. When the Italian army fought against the partisans in the Balkans, General Mario Robotti urged his soldiers to “be once again legionaries of civilization and of the high ideals of Rome.”

    .custom-post-from {float:left; margin: 0 10px 10px; max-width: 50%; width: 100%; text-align: center; background: #000000; color: #ffffff; padding: 15px 0 30px; }
    .custom-post-from img { max-width: 85% !important; margin: 15px auto; filter: brightness(0) invert(1); }
    .custom-post-from .cpf-h4 { font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 15px; }
    .custom-post-from .cpf-h5 { font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 15px; }
    .custom-post-from input[type=”email”] { font-size: 14px; color: #000 !important; width: 240px; margin: auto; height: 30px; box-shadow:none; border: none; padding: 0 10px; background-image: url(“https://www.fairobserver.com/wp-content/plugins/moosend_form/cpf-pen-icon.svg”); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: center right 14px; background-size:14px;}
    .custom-post-from input[type=”submit”] { font-weight: normal; margin: 15px auto; height: 30px; box-shadow: none; border: none; padding: 0 10px 0 35px; background-color: #1878f3; color: #ffffff; border-radius: 4px; display: inline-block; background-image: url(“https://www.fairobserver.com/wp-content/plugins/moosend_form/cpf-email-icon.svg”); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: 14px center; background-size: 14px; }

    .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox { width: 90%; margin: auto; position: relative; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap;}
    .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox label { text-align: left; display: block; padding-left: 32px; margin-bottom: 0; cursor: pointer; font-size: 11px; line-height: 18px;
    -webkit-user-select: none;
    -moz-user-select: none;
    -ms-user-select: none;
    user-select: none;
    order: 1;
    color: #ffffff;
    font-weight: normal;}
    .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox label a { color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline; }
    .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input { position: absolute; opacity: 0; cursor: pointer; height: 100%; width: 24%; left: 0;
    right: 0; margin: 0; z-index: 3; order: 2;}
    .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input ~ label:before { content: “f0c8”; font-family: Font Awesome 5 Free; color: #eee; font-size: 24px; position: absolute; left: 0; top: 0; line-height: 28px; color: #ffffff; width: 20px; height: 20px; margin-top: 5px; z-index: 2; }
    .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input:checked ~ label:before { content: “f14a”; font-weight: 600; color: #2196F3; }
    .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input:checked ~ label:after { content: “”; }
    .custom-post-from .cpf-checkbox input ~ label:after { position: absolute; left: 2px; width: 18px; height: 18px; margin-top: 10px; background: #ffffff; top: 10px; margin: auto; z-index: 1; }
    .custom-post-from .error{ display: block; color: #ff6461; order: 3 !important;}

    This belief in a “civilizing mission,” also known as romanità, was rooted in the 19th-century imperialist discourse and a conviction that the Italians were the heirs of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance. Therefore, violent imperialism was justified by constant references to ancient Rome, and the ultimate aim was to imitate its mission: the Pax Romana.

    Jewish-Italian historian Arnaldo Momigliano, who had to flee Fascist Italy in 1938, noted that the Pax Romana “is a simple formula for propaganda, but a difficult subject for research.” It was first proclaimed in 13 BC when Emperor Augustus and his deputy Agrippa returned from pacifying the provinces. In retrospect, the term referred to a nearly 200-year period of minimal Roman conquest and relative peacefulness. During this time, the Roman Empire reached its peak territorial expansion, and its population grew up to 70 million people. Thus, the Pax Romana perfectly fit into the Fascist rhetoric: “Peace” was not secured by some form of compromise or signed agreement (a “positive peace”) but was rather established through the sheer force and power of the Roman Empire and its army.

    Peace through force was exactly what the fascists were looking for at a time when they began to place Italy against the Western democracies and prepared for an imminent conflict. In 1933, a time when the regime was already considering the invasion in Ethiopia, the journalist Michele Campana argued in his book “L’impero fascista” that “fascism is … an armed people. No illusions. We have to prepare for the contrary. War is in the air in Europe. It has never been looming like in our days, after treaties have created the absurdity of a peace, that is not peace, with the desperate necessity to defend and arm itself. Then it will be good to obtain Victory, to dictate fascist peace.”

    Even more explicit was Benito Mussolini after he had met with Adolf Hitler in Venice in 1934. On June 26, 1934, he stated: “We have become a strong people. Our peace is thus virile, because peace avoids weak people and accompanies strong ones.”

    A Fascist Peace?

    The fascists would not only limit themselves to speeches and writings to propagate their mission to reestablish the ancient Pax Romana. Art, architecture and iconography played a key role in this propagandistic “revival.” After the successful end of the Abyssinian campaign, Mussolini ordered architect Vittorio Ballio Morpurgo to construct an enclosure for the restored Ara Pacis in February 1937. This altar, today a famous Roman tourist attraction, was originally built after Augustus’ announcement of the Pax Romana in 13 BC.

    On September 28, 1938, the restored Ara Pacis was inaugurated. An official newsreel by Italian state broadcaster LUCE shows the arrival of Mussolini and other fascist officials for the rededication of the Ara Pacis in its new pavilion. The event was part of the closing ceremony of the Augustan Year, the 2000-year anniversary of the emperor’s birth. Mussolini used these celebrations to cultivate a close connection with the personage of Augustus and claimed his actions were aimed at furthering the continuity of the Roman Empire.

    Next to the ruins of the mausoleum of Augustus near the river Tiber, the restored altar symbolized a key element of fascist propaganda. The concomitant effect was meant to encourage the viewer in Italy and abroad to associate Mussolini’s accomplishments with Augustus’ deeds in general and the Pax Romana in particular. After signing the Easter Agreement with Great Britain in April 1938, Il Duce inspected the construction site. The Times was quick to point out this visit as another sign of Mussolini’s peaceful intentions toward London: “Signor Mussolini, who has a strong sense of the value of a symbolic act, has had the wit to make use of the significance of the monument for the present occasion by associating its reconstruction with the latest act of his foreign policy.”

    Embed from Getty Images

    Fascist Italy rejected all doctrines that postulated a form of a positive peace. Equally foreign to the spirit of fascism were all international organizations such as the League of Nations, which, according to fascists, must crumble whenever the heart of a nation is deeply stirred by idealistic or practical considerations. On the contrary, fascists celebrated a life dedicated to self-sacrifice, struggle, violence and war.

    When World War II broke out and Italy did not immediately join, Mussolini was deeply troubled by this dilemma: “The Italians,” he lamented in October 1939, “after having heard my warlike propaganda for eighteen years, cannot understand how I can become the herald of peace, now that Europe is in flames.” However, it would be misleading to reduce fascism to a mere anti-peace or anti-pacifist movement. The fascists believed in a form of “negative peace,” where war is absent because of the strength of Fascist Italy. The peace order they wanted to establish, and which would allow them to carry out their social engineering and Italianization projects, mirrored the Pax Romana of old.

    This concept allowed the fascists to address two seemingly contradictory but essential parts of their own propaganda. On the one hand was the formation of the fascist “new man” who was always prepared to fight should the need arise, always vigilant and on guard, and immune to the deceptions of treacherous bourgeois nations who preached peace only to remain in power. On the other hand, by constantly referring to the Pax Romana, the fascists invoked the Roman Empire as a justification of violent expansionism and the creation of Italian living space in the Mediterranean.

    On October 28, 1937, Pino Romualdi, a Fascist official in Parma who would later become one of the founding fathers of the Italian neo-fascist party Movimento Sociale Italiano after the war, expressed this desire for “true peace” as follows: “Even though he is always ready to fight, so is he in the same way longing for peace, but only the “true” peace in the Roman and human sense of the word.”

    *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

    More stories

    • 75 Shares149 Views

      in World Politics

      Fascism and Peace: Incompatible or Inseparable?

      by

      For Benito Mussolini, life was an eternal struggle. Shaped by a social Darwinist worldview and following Georges Sorel’s philosophy of the virtue of violence, Il Duce (the leader), as Mussolini was known, regarded war as men’s essential purpose in life. It was through war that he intended to revolutionize Italian society and politics, destroy Italian vices like corruption, regionalism and individualism, and create the “new man” — a masculine, athletic peasant-soldier. Il Duce was convinced that “the character of the Italians must be forged in combat.”

      However, in January 1940, he confessed to his son-in-law and then-foreign minister, Galeazzo Ciano, that so far he had failed in this task: “Have you ever seen a lamb become a wolf? The Italian people is a race of sheep. Eighteen years is not enough to change them. It takes a hundred and eighty years or maybe a hundred and eighty centuries.”

      The New Man in Fascism Past and Present

      READ MORE

      However, it is not only Mussolini’s militaristic and violent rhetoric that put violence, war and struggle at the core of fascism. Il Duce and the fascist regime also followed up with violent action. Whether it was the bloody clashes between the fascist blackshirts and the Socialists in the 1920s, the brutal oppression of native rebellions in Libya in the 1920s and 1930s, the war crimes in Ethiopia or the atrocities committed during the Second World War, violence and war were fundamentally linked to the history of fascism. It is then not surprising that scholars who have attempted to define fascism emphasize the violent characteristics in an effort to capture the essence of the only “genuine ideology” of the 20th century, as Mussolini proudly called it in 1932.

      A Mutilated Victory

      Thus, the question arises: Where does “peace” fit in? Or was “peace” totally alien to fascist thinking and ideology? According to Johan Galtung, the founder of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, we can distinguish between a “positive” and a “negative peace.” Whereas the former refers to a constructive resolution of conflict and the creation of a social and political system that serves the needs of everybody, the latter refers to the absence of violence. How did fascists perceive a positive peace as promoted by Western democracies and new institutions such as the League of Nations after World War I? Did fascists’ long-term plans entail references to peace — at least in the sense of Galtung’s negative peace?

      Thomas Nipperdey began his history on 19th century Germany with the now famous words: “At the beginning was Napoleon.” When analyzing Italian fascism’s relationship to peace, one could make a similar statement: At the beginning was World War I. A majority of fascists, including Mussolini, Dino Grandi and Achille Starace, were staunch interventionists who were totally disappointed and appalled by the outcome of the Paris Peace Conference. They regarded the treaties as a betrayal to their own war commitment and perceived them as unjust terms that were forced onto Italy by Great Britain and France. When referring to these agreements, they commonly used the words “mutilated victory,” a slogan coined by Italian nationalist and poet Gabriele D’Annunzio.

      Embed from Getty Images

      When assessing the slogan’s devastating consequences for Italy’s political scene, it can only be compared with the infamous German Dolchstosslegende — the stab-in-the-back myth used by the German far right (including the National Socialists) against the Weimar Republic. On the one hand, Italian fascists used the mutilated victory myth against Italian liberals, whom they blamed for a failed negotiation strategy in Paris and consequently labeled traitors to the Italian nation. On the other hand, it was used to attack Western democracies accused of trying to stop Italy from taking its rightful place on the international stage.

      Interestingly, the phrase itself exposes the fascists’ preference for martial rhetoric. Instead of using the term “peace treaties,” the slogan “mutilated victory” implies an ongoing struggle as well as powerfully evoking those who returned from the war wounded. These soldiers who sacrificed themselves for the greater good of their fatherland had been shamefully betrayed by both Western democracies and liberal Italian politicians. Therefore, it is not surprising that one of the main goals of Italian fascism was to seek a revision of the postwar peace order and thus turn a “mutilated victory” into a “true victory” for Italy.

      The Rejection of Peace

      The fascists’ attitude toward the Paris Peace Treaties is just one example that illustrates their overall stance toward the peaceful order democracies sought to create following World War I. In 1932, when the regime in Rome celebrated its 10-year anniversary, the government published the “Doctrine of Fascism,” written mainly by Benito Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile. It contained one of the rare references to peace in an official government document, stating: “Fascism does not … believe in the possibility or utility of perpetual peace. It therefore discards pacifism as a cloak for cowardly supine renunciation in contradistinction to self-sacrifice. … War alone keys up all human energies to their maximum tension and sets the seal of nobility on those peoples who have the courage to face it.”  

      This rejection of peace was not solely confined to the international arena; it also applied to domestic politics. The government attempted to infuse this anti-pacifistic attitude, which became a guiding doctrine for the fascists’ social and political agenda, into the every-day life of its citizens. The Italian new man was meant to embrace a fighting spirit, accept all kinds of risks and should not shy away from self-sacrifice. This concept of life mirrored the philosophy of Futurists such as Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, who intended, as he outlined in his “Futurist Manifesto” of 1919, “to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and fearlessness” and embraced “courage, audacity and revolt.”

      This concept of life stood in contrast to the bourgeois lifestyle, which the fascists rejected as individualistic, feminine and weak. A bourgeois society, according to fascist doctrine, was only able to survive if it created what fascism despised the most: long-lasting peace. For Mussolini, the embodiment of such a society was Great Britain. He explained to Ciano that he had “studied the different generations of the English people. He observed that 22 million men faced 24 million women and that 12 million citizens were over 50 years old and thus have crossed the line of belligerent desires. Consequently, the static masses dominated the youthful-dynamic ones. That means: quiet life, ready for compromises, peace.” Compromise and peace, however, were, in the fascist worldview, obvious signs of weakness, cowardice and decay.

      This quote leads to a final point. Whether in domestic affairs or in international politics, fascists rejected any kind of status quo. They defined their movement as dynamic, led by a charismatic leader who was energetic and powerful and always moving forward. Mussolini himself, portrayed as the nation’s soldier number one and a reincarnation of the condottiere — a leader of mercenaries in Renaissance Italy — claimed that he was born to never let the Italian people rest. A positive peace, however, would maintain and safeguard a certain status quo and thus undermine the fascists’ constructed self-image of a dynamic movement. Robert Paxton argues that a fascist movement must constantly renew itself and challenge the status quo. If it fails to do so, it turns into a normal form of dictatorship. Thus, one could conclude that if a fascist regime accepts a positive peace, it has ceased to exist.

      Is peace, therefore, just another area where we could define fascism as an essential anti-movement? Such a conclusion, however, would be too simple. Historian Roger Griffin convincingly argued that it would be misleading to understand fascism purely as an anti-movement. On the contrary, fascists seduced the masses by promoting the idea of the rebirth of the nation, coined by Griffin as a form of palingenetic ultra-nationalism. Fascists were not nihilists by nature but wanted to create a brighter, better future for the nation by leading it out of whatever crisis it currently faced, which, in turn, means manufacturing a crisis if none can be found.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in World Politics

      Gone With the Wind: On the Pitfalls of Symbolic Politics

      by

      A few days ago, Quaker Oats announced it would retire its 130-year-old brand of pancake syrup and breakfast foods, Aunt Jemima. The company acknowledged that the Aunt Jemima character was based on a racial stereotype. In the aftermath of the decision, other companies, among them Mars Food, followed suit announcing that it was time to […] More