Fascism took control in Italy in October 1922. It served as a model for Europe's right wing, particularly for Hitler. Why are we here, and what does it have to do with the Meloni administration today?
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| [Rome, Italy] |
The urban legend that circulated during the last week of October one hundred years ago has been debunked in every possible way in recent years. The "March on Rome" in the days following October 27, which finished with the government order handed to Benito Mussolini, proceeded in a manner that was far different from the story that the "Duce" produced for it. At most, about 28,000 fascists were active on the streets of Italy, despite the claims that there were 300,000 fascists in the country at the time. Only approximately 15,000 people lived in Rome proper. Even more impressive is the fact that their commander traveled all the way from Milan by rail.
Because of this, his well-known claim to King Victor Emmanuel that he came "from the battles" was a falsehood. However, Mussolini's blackshirts had also not participated in any combat. She was almost unimpeded by anybody else. The consistent rain that occurred over those days very certainly contributed to the accumulation of mud on her footwear. According to an Italian historian named Hans Woller, Mussolini's soldiers battled mostly with their emotions before Rome.
And yet, this staging marked the beginning of the "ventennio," which was more than 20 years of fascist power over Italy. This reign started on October 30th with the government mandate of the monarch. She ought to be held up as an example for those right-wing anti-democrats living all throughout Europe.
Lastly, but certainly not least, Adolf Hitler liked Mussolini, despite the fact that their relationship eventually became antagonistic. Beginning in 1943, the earlier model was only permitted as a puppet potentate of a residual state thanks to the favor of Germany. This state was located in Sal on Lake Garda and was known as the "Repubblica social italiana."
It is well knowledge that the history of "Nazifascismo," which is the term used in Italy to describe the combination of the two right-wing dictatorships, did not come to an end in either country in the year 1945. In Germany, too, after the first row of Nazi perpetrators had been convicted or fled, the sometimes smaller, sometimes larger pillars of the system often held high offices: as civil servants, in the management of companies, in the judiciary, and even in politics - such as Adenauer's chancellery chief Hans Globke, the co-author of the Nazi racial laws. In the United States, too, after the first row of Nazi perpetrators had either been convicted or fled.
The current President of Parliament collects Duce memorabilia
In Italy, on the other hand, the process of integrating the modern with the ancient went much farther. Even emblems often associated with fascism were not prohibited here. There is still an obelisk at the Olympic Stadium in Rome that has the inscription "Mussolini Dux." Devotional objects, such as busts of the dictator and fascist literature, are openly exchanged at flea markets and in antique stores.
They are abundant in the residence of Ignazio La Russa, who was just chosen as the new speaker of the Italian Parliament and is also a co-founder of the party that is now in power, Fratelli d'Italia. And at Predappio, which is located in Emilia-Romagna and was the birthplace of the Duce, the zealots continue to perform processions each and every year to the crypt where their idol is buried.
According to historian Francesco Filippi, even though the "ventennio" and the atrocities of the government have arguably been dealt with most exhaustively in the historical research of Italy, very little of this information has permeated the common awareness. The idea that fascism was also responsible for a great deal of progress that was positive is widely held.
Filippi recently said in an interview with the Swiss daily newspaper Tages-Anzeiger that the popularity of his own book serves as an indicator. It was originally written in Italian and given the title "Mussolini also did well" when it was released. "Many purchased it without first reading the subtitle because they were under the impression that a historian would validate their views."
The fall of Christian Democracy enabled the rise of post-fascism
Nonetheless, an anti-fascist consensus prevailed in Italy for decades. The residual regime officials and fascist nostalgics were very active, and they formed the party with the symbolic name "Movimento sociale italiano," which is tied to Sal. However, the constitutional arc parties, beginning with the state party Democrazia Cristiana, kept the MSI out of power.
Christian Democrats, such as Tina Anselmi, who recently appeared in Giorgia Meloni's address as one of the women she considers role models, had also fought in the partisan struggle against the German occupiers and their own fascists.
And now, over a century after the "Marcia su Roma," for the first time, an Italian party perceives itself as the political heir to the MSI is in power. According to Patrizia Dogliani, a historian at the University of Bologna, the fact that this may happen has something to do with the end of the DC 30 years ago. Back then, "the white whale," the perpetual ruling party, vanished in a massive corruption scandal.
The prosecutors' investigations into the "Mani pulite" pool have swept away the political elite from February 1992 - 2022 is also a year of remembering for this. But, according to Dogliani, who has studied fascism and historical memory, something else has vanished with the old party system: "the passing on of the memory or, at the very least, the legitimacy of a democracy that had battled fascist." That enabled everything."
On Wednesday, at his first address in the Senate - he had been barred from doing so for nine years due to a tax evasion conviction - Berlusconi gleefully claimed the extreme right's "sdoganamento": the current Meloni cabinet is "the outcome of the partnership that we sealed then."
Giorgia Meloni, on the other hand, represents the part for which the Alleanza nazionale's turning point in 1995 went too far. Nine years ago, those assembled in their "Fratelli d'Italia" gulped hard at the knowledge that the then-AN party leader, Gianfranco Fini, had even denounced fascism as "total evil" on a visit to Israel.
Meloni has proudly adopted MSI's previous insignia, the green, white, and red flame, despite her efforts to depict herself as a European conservative, she added. With a childlike naivety, she writes out the fascist mantra "God, family, fatherland" - what's so awful about loving your family, being religious, and being a patriot? Your Ministry of Equality and Family, enlarged to include birth rate responsibilities under an anti-abortion party, is now intended to urge Italians to father children like they formerly did.
Meloni's vision of democracy is reduced to the principle that victors are right - she often uses this to defend Hungary's iliberal Orbán, who finally won the election - and her distance from fascist is similarly dry: she openly condemns the regime's anti-Semitic racial legislation. But she says nothing about the systematic brutality, the political killings of fascism from the start, or the subsequent homicidal colonial wars in North and East Africa.
Even their resolve to destroy the reddito di cittadinanza, a type of social support that, according to official figures, has reduced absolute poverty in Italy, may be viewed as a continuation of a tradition: fascism already had scant regard for the poor and those left behind. Agricultural employees' hunger wages declined instead of growing, as did those in industry. According to Marcello Flores and Giovanni Gozzini's recently published book "Perché il fascismo è nato in Italia," the literacy rate in Italy achieved the most minimal improvement over the twentieth century. "Only Franco's Spain was worse."
Mussolini came because nobody opposed it
The two contemporary historians, who are looking for reasons for the early rise of fascism in Italy in addition to the political, social, economic, and psychological history of Italy, provide a brief answer to the question they posed: fascism's most important ally is simply "the disintegration of all other political forces."
Nobody acted, partly in the belief that fascism would pass, and partly because they expected Mussolini to be thankful to them.
This, too, is similar of today: the non-right camp did not just run in the elections. It is likewise split in the opposition. And some of the opposition is already flirting with the new ruling class.
The author Andrea Dernbach is a German political journalist.