The Historical Roots of Italian Fascism: Outlining the Political and Philosophical Movements that Influenced Fascism and its Founders
by
Sasha
Fascism, established by Benito Mussolini and his political party Fasci Italiani di Combattimento in 1919, is a political movement founded upon a variety of political movements and schools of thought, combining them into an ultranationalist, totalitarian ideology. It is hard to define Fascism due to the many interpretations and variants of Fascism, Italian Fascism being the model of what a “Fascist State” should be and behave like. Each fascist regime is different, because as all ideologies, it is subjective and can be manipulated to hold a meaning that is to the benefit of the person, or on a larger scale, to the nation implementing the ideology. People add or subtract aspects of Fascism as they see fit to their personal agendas, or decide to only implement certain ideas of the ideology, exemplifying fascistic qualities, not taking on the full label of “Fascist”.
There are multiple ways to describe Fascism, due to/ the plethora of ideological and personal perspectives and many renderings of a “Fascist regime” adding to the already complex and confusing nature of Fascism. In the book Fascism, A Very Short Introduction, Kevin Passmore outlines the three main approaches of defining and interpreting Fascism. The first method of defining Fascism is the Marxist approach, which focuses greatly on defining it in terms of its relation to capitalism. The Fascists are caught in the middle ground between the choice of capital (capitalism) and labour (socialism and communism) since on the one hand they own their own property but are still exploited by big business. The Fascists, also known as the petty bourgeoisie, are convinced by the Capitalists that they must defend their property against the Socialists, hence the great emphasis of anti-Socialism in the Fascist doctrine. This definition does not quite give the depth needed to really describe Fascism, since it only does so from one perspective while Fascism is a multi-faceted ideology. The second method, known as the Weberian approach, portrays Fascism as an anti modernist ideology and states that the feudal ruling class and elites facilitated the conditions for Fascism to become an independent ideology, using their great influence over the working class and the petty bourgeoisie, raise and promote ultra nationalistic movements to diminish socialist and liberal democratic movements. Though helpful in understanding the social aspects of Fascism, it does not help with explaining the very radical features present in the ideology and just as the Marxist approach, makes the assumption that the citizens of countries where Fascism was active and had significant influence and power would be easily manipulated and influenced by the elites of said country. The final method presented is the approach of defining Fascism in the context of totalitarian nationalism. Totalitarian was a word that was created by Italian Fascists to describe the ultranationalist drive of the ideology and its followers. Using this definition to help define Fascism sheds light on the nature of Fascism and its tendency to undermine business and the family if either do not act in favour of nation, as well as condoning violence and attack of political enemies for the end goal of Fascism 𑁋to gain as much power as possible. This explanation has a flaw that is the opposite of the ones pointed out in the Marxist and Weberian approach, instead of describing both the cause and the nature of Fascism, it only does for the latter. [1]
Kevin Passmore also presents a definition, incorporating the three approaches as well as personal and scholarly analyses of Fascism. He defines it as: “A set of ideologies that seeks to place the nation, defined in exclusive biological, cultural, and/or historical terms above all sources of loyalty and to create a mobilized national community.”[2] This mobilized national community is lead by one leader who represents the will of the people and the state, embodying a mass militarised party. Fascism is against any ideology that puts people above the interest of the state, so it wages a social and political war against movements such as socialism, capitalism and feminism. Unlike authoritarian conservative regimes, Fascism is willing to undermine aspects such as family, property, civil service, e.t.c. if they are not in favor of the state 𑁋 “Nothing for the individual, all for Italy.”
Now that Fascism has been defined, it is important to distinguish the differences between Italian Fascism and other Fascist regimes. Since there have been a variety of Fascist regimes over the span of time from the instillation of the first Fascist state in 1922, the comparison will be between Italian Fascism and German Nazism, the most prominent and memorable Fascist regime to arise in the 20th century.
Both Italian Fascism and Nazism alike sought to create a strong, mobilized nation and national unity through the silencing and suppression of alleged national enemies and promoting military expansionism, exemplifying the “Darwinian struggle of nations.” With the hatred of the left present in Italian Fascism and Nazism, both created a state in such a way that left-wing institutions had a much harder time existing and thriving, having to make far more sacrifices than the right wing. This resulted in the permanent rivalry between Fascism and established institutions that existed before the rise of Fascism. Another prominent aspect present in both regimes was the condoning of discrimination against people of the non-prefered or not accepted nationality, adopting ideas such as racism and social Darwinism.
There are many differences that affected the outcome and the deviation of Nazism from the model set by Italy and Benito Mussolini. Firstly, Hitler, six years Mussolini’s junior, was exposed to different experiences, works of literature and philosophy that could have influenced him due to being raised in a relatively different time period and geopolitical climate 𑁋 “...he had been able to escape the trial and error of nineteenth-century mentality; and, entirely moulded by military environment and World War.”[3] This ties into the next point, it being that Hitler was mobilizing a nation of a greater population that was located in a more geographically advantageous location compared to Italy. Hitler was also mobilizing a population with a better military history and background, arguably better skill and intellect[4] and a common contempt for the western countries and the humiliating and horrible conditions of the Treaty of Versaille. Giuseppe Antonio Borgese, an Italian writer and author of Goliath; The March Of Fascism, argues that since Italy did not face the same moral shame and humiliation that had faced Germany after the First World War, Italy was not able to make a rebound into Fascism with the same intensity and drive that was present in Hitler and the people of the German nation.[5] Other differences are largely related to the great emphasis on racial purity and socialism Darwinism present in the Nazi regime. When establishing his regime, Hitler envisioned a racial Utopia𑁋A German nation of only the superior German people, that is Aryans. This would be achieved through the extermination of Jews, following the Polish, Gypsies, and so on, as well as the conquest of Eastern Europe to destroy Judeo-Bolshevism. In Italy, though anti-semitism was present, it was not nearly as extreme as Hitler’s, this is due mostly to Jews being a small minority barely present in the ethnic makeup of the really mixed Italian state, but when it came to the question of other ethnicities not accepted in the “Italian identity”, Italian Fascists were just as ruthless.[6]
Fascism is not an original or progressive ideology, instead it takes aspects from the works of philosophers, authors, politicians and reinterprets and incorporates them into an ultranationalist, idealist, and totalitarian regime that in practice could never work. The first major facet of Fascism is ultranationalism, promoting the state above the citizens and private business. As quoted from the Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism written by Benito Mussolini: “The state is fascism’s core idea. The state has a life of its own, all apart from its citizens. The state transcends its members in time and scope, transmitting from one generation to the next the spirit and culture of a people.”[7] 𑁋All of those points present the great importance of nationalism to the Fascist identity. Italian Fascism is similar to that popularised by Charles Maurras, a French author, politician, and proponent of Action Française, a right-wing, nationalist movement founded in 1899. Maurras’ view of an ideal political system was that it had to have a “supreme center of authority superior to and independent of the mere expression of the popular will.”[8] Other contributors to the Italian view of nationalism were Georges Sorel and Charles Peguy, both were cited in Fascist speeches, writings and doctrines. But nationalism was not a new and revolutionary idea to Italian society, it dates back to Dante Alighieri, an Italian poet from the late thirteenth century who is considered the father of the Italian nation, pioneering the idea of an Italian nation and identity.[9] Fascists often sourced Dante and other prominent Italian philosophers, authors, and poets such as Machiavelli, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Giambattista Vico in their speeches and writings, reinterpreting their works to better suit the Fascist cause. More modern relative to the rise of Fascism, the nineteenth century saw the rise of a romanticized nationalism, a movement called “Risorgimento” that had a goal to unify the nation-states along the Italian peninsula into one country𑁋Italy.
After the Great War had ended, there was another surge of nationalism, defining “true government” as a living ideal of unity, as well as promoting the discipline of a nation for the struggle against other nations, this struggle expressing itself through the form of military action. To achieve this, the state had to be portrayed as a religion. This tactic is utilized in the Fundamental Ideas of Fascism ghost-written by Giovanni Gentile, in which it is explicitly stated that the Fascist ideology should be viewed by its followers as a religion: “Fascism does not use religion; it is a religion.”[10]
Idealism was introduced to Italian society to by Francesco De Sanctis and Silvio Spaventa, the goal of Hegelian Idealism was to incorporate a spiritual component to secular politics through metaphysical philosophy that asserts reality is a construct of human creation, claiming that humans can only know what they register as their own thought[11]. The ideas adopted and espoused by Italian idealists were similar to those of nationalists, in some cases members of one ideological group also associated themselves with the other. Both Spaventa and Sanctis supported Risorgimento and placed the state above the people. Though idealist may not be Fascists, Fascists believe in certain principles that are attributed to the influence of idealism. Fascism denounces any science or philosophy is based on theories and not tested or proven physically, nothing is real until ultimately proven, and does not believe in the individual identity, Yet still it deviates from the definition of Italian idealism in the sense that Fascism unites individuals, while the former destroys individuals 𑁋In the end, neither ideology leaves room for individualism.
Syndicalism is an economic ideology, describing society as class struggle between wage earners and property owners that can only be solved through the establishment of a collectivist society, prioritizing the collective, in this case Italy, over the individual need. The ideology quickly migrated from its origins in France to Italy, the first official Italian Syndicalist union forming in 1914. Prominent leaders, such as Alfredo Rocco, Dino Grandi and Enrico Corradini flocked to national syndicalism after D’Annunzio’s doctrine for corporations in the captured city of Fiume brought the movement into the national spotlight. Eventually, syndicalism merged into corporatism and became the economic structure of Fascist Italy until its downfall in 1943.[12]
Fascism took ideas and principles from these three separate, though closely related ideologies, to fill spaces in the ideology where it lacked. Nationalism provided the necessary foundation for the political state, syndicalism introduced a spirituality for the state, and syndicalism provided the economic structure used to dominate the people of the nation. In theory these three ideologies should have worked well together as they had similar theories, all of them placing the state above the people in one way or another, either through the destruction of individualism, economic structure, or ultranationalist doctrine. But as seen in the low success rate of Italian Fascism compared to that of Nazi Germany, though partly attributed to other social and moral differences, can also be explained by the fact that Italian Fascists united together by a common ideology, could not agree on what Fascism and its contributing ideologies meant and were defined to be.
Sources
Footnotes
[1]Kevin Passmore, Fascism, A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 14-22
[2] Ibid., 31
[3] Giuseppe Antonio Borgese, Golaith; The March of Fascism, (New York: The Viking Press, 1938), 360
[4] Ibid., 362
[5] Ibid., 363
[6] Borgese, Goliath; The March of Fascism, 359-360
[7] Benito Mussolini, The Doctrine of Fascism, (New York: Howard Fertig, 2006)
[8] Evangeline Kodric, “Origins of Fascism” (Masters Thesis, Marquette University, 1953), 24
[9] Borgese, Goliath; The March of Fascism, 7
[10] Benito Mussolini, The Doctrine of Fascism
[11] Kodric, The Origins of Fascism, 38
[12] Ibid., 45
There are multiple ways to describe Fascism, due to/ the plethora of ideological and personal perspectives and many renderings of a “Fascist regime” adding to the already complex and confusing nature of Fascism. In the book Fascism, A Very Short Introduction, Kevin Passmore outlines the three main approaches of defining and interpreting Fascism. The first method of defining Fascism is the Marxist approach, which focuses greatly on defining it in terms of its relation to capitalism. The Fascists are caught in the middle ground between the choice of capital (capitalism) and labour (socialism and communism) since on the one hand they own their own property but are still exploited by big business. The Fascists, also known as the petty bourgeoisie, are convinced by the Capitalists that they must defend their property against the Socialists, hence the great emphasis of anti-Socialism in the Fascist doctrine. This definition does not quite give the depth needed to really describe Fascism, since it only does so from one perspective while Fascism is a multi-faceted ideology. The second method, known as the Weberian approach, portrays Fascism as an anti modernist ideology and states that the feudal ruling class and elites facilitated the conditions for Fascism to become an independent ideology, using their great influence over the working class and the petty bourgeoisie, raise and promote ultra nationalistic movements to diminish socialist and liberal democratic movements. Though helpful in understanding the social aspects of Fascism, it does not help with explaining the very radical features present in the ideology and just as the Marxist approach, makes the assumption that the citizens of countries where Fascism was active and had significant influence and power would be easily manipulated and influenced by the elites of said country. The final method presented is the approach of defining Fascism in the context of totalitarian nationalism. Totalitarian was a word that was created by Italian Fascists to describe the ultranationalist drive of the ideology and its followers. Using this definition to help define Fascism sheds light on the nature of Fascism and its tendency to undermine business and the family if either do not act in favour of nation, as well as condoning violence and attack of political enemies for the end goal of Fascism 𑁋to gain as much power as possible. This explanation has a flaw that is the opposite of the ones pointed out in the Marxist and Weberian approach, instead of describing both the cause and the nature of Fascism, it only does for the latter. [1]
Kevin Passmore also presents a definition, incorporating the three approaches as well as personal and scholarly analyses of Fascism. He defines it as: “A set of ideologies that seeks to place the nation, defined in exclusive biological, cultural, and/or historical terms above all sources of loyalty and to create a mobilized national community.”[2] This mobilized national community is lead by one leader who represents the will of the people and the state, embodying a mass militarised party. Fascism is against any ideology that puts people above the interest of the state, so it wages a social and political war against movements such as socialism, capitalism and feminism. Unlike authoritarian conservative regimes, Fascism is willing to undermine aspects such as family, property, civil service, e.t.c. if they are not in favor of the state 𑁋 “Nothing for the individual, all for Italy.”
Now that Fascism has been defined, it is important to distinguish the differences between Italian Fascism and other Fascist regimes. Since there have been a variety of Fascist regimes over the span of time from the instillation of the first Fascist state in 1922, the comparison will be between Italian Fascism and German Nazism, the most prominent and memorable Fascist regime to arise in the 20th century.
Both Italian Fascism and Nazism alike sought to create a strong, mobilized nation and national unity through the silencing and suppression of alleged national enemies and promoting military expansionism, exemplifying the “Darwinian struggle of nations.” With the hatred of the left present in Italian Fascism and Nazism, both created a state in such a way that left-wing institutions had a much harder time existing and thriving, having to make far more sacrifices than the right wing. This resulted in the permanent rivalry between Fascism and established institutions that existed before the rise of Fascism. Another prominent aspect present in both regimes was the condoning of discrimination against people of the non-prefered or not accepted nationality, adopting ideas such as racism and social Darwinism.
There are many differences that affected the outcome and the deviation of Nazism from the model set by Italy and Benito Mussolini. Firstly, Hitler, six years Mussolini’s junior, was exposed to different experiences, works of literature and philosophy that could have influenced him due to being raised in a relatively different time period and geopolitical climate 𑁋 “...he had been able to escape the trial and error of nineteenth-century mentality; and, entirely moulded by military environment and World War.”[3] This ties into the next point, it being that Hitler was mobilizing a nation of a greater population that was located in a more geographically advantageous location compared to Italy. Hitler was also mobilizing a population with a better military history and background, arguably better skill and intellect[4] and a common contempt for the western countries and the humiliating and horrible conditions of the Treaty of Versaille. Giuseppe Antonio Borgese, an Italian writer and author of Goliath; The March Of Fascism, argues that since Italy did not face the same moral shame and humiliation that had faced Germany after the First World War, Italy was not able to make a rebound into Fascism with the same intensity and drive that was present in Hitler and the people of the German nation.[5] Other differences are largely related to the great emphasis on racial purity and socialism Darwinism present in the Nazi regime. When establishing his regime, Hitler envisioned a racial Utopia𑁋A German nation of only the superior German people, that is Aryans. This would be achieved through the extermination of Jews, following the Polish, Gypsies, and so on, as well as the conquest of Eastern Europe to destroy Judeo-Bolshevism. In Italy, though anti-semitism was present, it was not nearly as extreme as Hitler’s, this is due mostly to Jews being a small minority barely present in the ethnic makeup of the really mixed Italian state, but when it came to the question of other ethnicities not accepted in the “Italian identity”, Italian Fascists were just as ruthless.[6]
Fascism is not an original or progressive ideology, instead it takes aspects from the works of philosophers, authors, politicians and reinterprets and incorporates them into an ultranationalist, idealist, and totalitarian regime that in practice could never work. The first major facet of Fascism is ultranationalism, promoting the state above the citizens and private business. As quoted from the Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism written by Benito Mussolini: “The state is fascism’s core idea. The state has a life of its own, all apart from its citizens. The state transcends its members in time and scope, transmitting from one generation to the next the spirit and culture of a people.”[7] 𑁋All of those points present the great importance of nationalism to the Fascist identity. Italian Fascism is similar to that popularised by Charles Maurras, a French author, politician, and proponent of Action Française, a right-wing, nationalist movement founded in 1899. Maurras’ view of an ideal political system was that it had to have a “supreme center of authority superior to and independent of the mere expression of the popular will.”[8] Other contributors to the Italian view of nationalism were Georges Sorel and Charles Peguy, both were cited in Fascist speeches, writings and doctrines. But nationalism was not a new and revolutionary idea to Italian society, it dates back to Dante Alighieri, an Italian poet from the late thirteenth century who is considered the father of the Italian nation, pioneering the idea of an Italian nation and identity.[9] Fascists often sourced Dante and other prominent Italian philosophers, authors, and poets such as Machiavelli, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Giambattista Vico in their speeches and writings, reinterpreting their works to better suit the Fascist cause. More modern relative to the rise of Fascism, the nineteenth century saw the rise of a romanticized nationalism, a movement called “Risorgimento” that had a goal to unify the nation-states along the Italian peninsula into one country𑁋Italy.
After the Great War had ended, there was another surge of nationalism, defining “true government” as a living ideal of unity, as well as promoting the discipline of a nation for the struggle against other nations, this struggle expressing itself through the form of military action. To achieve this, the state had to be portrayed as a religion. This tactic is utilized in the Fundamental Ideas of Fascism ghost-written by Giovanni Gentile, in which it is explicitly stated that the Fascist ideology should be viewed by its followers as a religion: “Fascism does not use religion; it is a religion.”[10]
Idealism was introduced to Italian society to by Francesco De Sanctis and Silvio Spaventa, the goal of Hegelian Idealism was to incorporate a spiritual component to secular politics through metaphysical philosophy that asserts reality is a construct of human creation, claiming that humans can only know what they register as their own thought[11]. The ideas adopted and espoused by Italian idealists were similar to those of nationalists, in some cases members of one ideological group also associated themselves with the other. Both Spaventa and Sanctis supported Risorgimento and placed the state above the people. Though idealist may not be Fascists, Fascists believe in certain principles that are attributed to the influence of idealism. Fascism denounces any science or philosophy is based on theories and not tested or proven physically, nothing is real until ultimately proven, and does not believe in the individual identity, Yet still it deviates from the definition of Italian idealism in the sense that Fascism unites individuals, while the former destroys individuals 𑁋In the end, neither ideology leaves room for individualism.
Syndicalism is an economic ideology, describing society as class struggle between wage earners and property owners that can only be solved through the establishment of a collectivist society, prioritizing the collective, in this case Italy, over the individual need. The ideology quickly migrated from its origins in France to Italy, the first official Italian Syndicalist union forming in 1914. Prominent leaders, such as Alfredo Rocco, Dino Grandi and Enrico Corradini flocked to national syndicalism after D’Annunzio’s doctrine for corporations in the captured city of Fiume brought the movement into the national spotlight. Eventually, syndicalism merged into corporatism and became the economic structure of Fascist Italy until its downfall in 1943.[12]
Fascism took ideas and principles from these three separate, though closely related ideologies, to fill spaces in the ideology where it lacked. Nationalism provided the necessary foundation for the political state, syndicalism introduced a spirituality for the state, and syndicalism provided the economic structure used to dominate the people of the nation. In theory these three ideologies should have worked well together as they had similar theories, all of them placing the state above the people in one way or another, either through the destruction of individualism, economic structure, or ultranationalist doctrine. But as seen in the low success rate of Italian Fascism compared to that of Nazi Germany, though partly attributed to other social and moral differences, can also be explained by the fact that Italian Fascists united together by a common ideology, could not agree on what Fascism and its contributing ideologies meant and were defined to be.
Sources
- Borgese, Giuseppe Antonio, Golaith; The March of Fascism, (New York: The Viking Press, 1938).
- Evangeline Kodric, “Origins of Fascism” (Masters Thesis, Marquette University, 1953).
- Mussolini, Benito, The Doctrine of Fascism, (New York: Howard Fertig, 2006).
- Passmore, Kevin, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
- Salvemini, Gaetano, Under the Axe of Fascism, (London and Southampton: The Camelot Press, 1936).
Footnotes
[1]Kevin Passmore, Fascism, A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 14-22
[2] Ibid., 31
[3] Giuseppe Antonio Borgese, Golaith; The March of Fascism, (New York: The Viking Press, 1938), 360
[4] Ibid., 362
[5] Ibid., 363
[6] Borgese, Goliath; The March of Fascism, 359-360
[7] Benito Mussolini, The Doctrine of Fascism, (New York: Howard Fertig, 2006)
[8] Evangeline Kodric, “Origins of Fascism” (Masters Thesis, Marquette University, 1953), 24
[9] Borgese, Goliath; The March of Fascism, 7
[10] Benito Mussolini, The Doctrine of Fascism
[11] Kodric, The Origins of Fascism, 38
[12] Ibid., 45