-Caveat Lector-
Italian Fascism: An Interpretation
by JAMES B. WHISKER
<cont'd>
For Sorel, power and coercion go hand in glove. Fascist
theoreticians had no reason to change this when they were
required to articulate an ideology of fascism. No rival power was
to be permitted. The state's monopoly on power and coercion
effectively translated to a monopoly for the fascist party since
no other party was permitted. This exclusiveness is also based on
an obvious logic. The fascist party had conceived the fascist
state. One could not think of a "corporate state" or a
"syndicalist state" without thinking of the fascist party.
Fascism was inseparable from corporativism or syndicalism. If one
removed the one concept, he necessarily removed the others. The
fascist party, not the state, was the guardian of the fascist
ideals, especially including syndicalism and the corporate
organization of the state. The orthodoxy of syndicalist ideas was
safeguarded in the fascist party. Hence, the highest value in the
fascist state was syndicalism-corporativism. All force must be
available to ensure its purity and its continued existence. The
fascist party then is able to exercise in the name of ideological
orthodoxy the state's power.
The fascist party had a special mission to the world as well
as to the Italian people in keeping the ideology orthodox.
Initially, fascism was conceived as an Italian movement, the
natural byproduct and the logical culmination of the emerging
Italian nationalism and its cultural Risorgimento.[29] Little
thought was given to its potential exportability. By the middle
of the 1930s Mussolini had come to the conclusion that fascism
represented the new dynamic driving force that would conquer the
world and take the place of the faded liberalism of the
nineteenth century.
Giuseppe Mazzini,[30] philosopher, revolutionary,
soldier-of-fortune, patriot and nationalist leader of the
nineteenth century had sought in vain a set of Italian principles
wherewith Italy could re-establish her intellectual leadership
and philosophical pre-eminence in Europe. One or two great ideas,
ideas that would motivate mankind to abandon the false premises
of French liberalism, that was all Mazzini wanted. His own search
for ideas or revolutionary zeal failed. Nonetheless, he was quite
convinced that the rebirth of Italian philosophy and culture, the
Risorgimento, would indeed be ultimately productive to the extent
the Italy would once again be the birthplace of some new idea
wherewith the world would become enticed away from liberalism.
When the nineteenth century ended without producing such an
awe-inspiring idea many Italian patriots were heartbroken, but
the dream was not vacated. After Italy's catastrophic betrayal at
Versailles, after so many promises made and broken by England and
France, after her dreams of territorial acquisitions had been
betrayed, after so much loss of life, the dream seemed lost
forever. But with the post-war rise of fascism some few fascist
supporters saw the fulfillment of Mazzini's dream. Fascism was to
be the single inspiration point for the Italian nationalistic
dream of cultural and spiritual leadership. All that remained was
to export the idea, the idea that was to supplant liberalism, to
others civilized nations.
By the time of the great depression, other fascist movements
had arisen in Europe. Even in Southern and Eastern Europe fascist
movements and parties had been founded.[31] The rise of Adolf
Hitler in Germany was the culmination of Mazzini's idea. Germany,
a mighty culture producing nation had seemingly accepted an
Italian idea. England was on the brink of discovering fascism
with Oswald Mosley[32] a mighty leader at the helm.
It soon appeared that the fascisms that grew up in the
remainder of Europe bore only little similarity to that of Italy,
excepting notably Mosley's British party. Germany's Nazism was
based not on Italian ideals but on German myths, on racism
grounded in a Nordic-Aryan race. The movements in Eastern Europe
remained mystical-religious movements for the most part,
excepting anti-Semitic ideals accepted especially in Poland[33]
and Romania.[34] These movements were decidedly anti-foreign and
extremely nationalistic. They had little interest in the
syndicalist-corporativist state that lay at the heart of Italian
fascism. They shared common features more of national socialism
than of Italian fascism, although each was based in the
nationalist sentiments and frustrations of the particular
nationality involved.
Fascist movements in general had certain distinguishing
features.[35] They opposed parliamentary governments as being
impotent to handle such worldwide crises as the great depression
of 1929. They distrusted the "laissez-faire" economic system of
capitalism as associated with the French liberal philosophy of
the nineteenth century, for the system had collapsed in 1929.
They preferred authoritarian governments which they felt alone
were powerful enough to deal with crises without failing. They
looked for collective social security against the social atomism
of the liberal society. Liberal value systems grounded in
utilitarian and value-relativism had failed to provide basic
morality for society.
In seeking collectivist alternatives to the socially
disintegrating systems of liberal philosophy, fascist movements
rushed toward the deification of the state. They reacted
collectively to problems of society and the state. Fascism was
thus able to attract followers by offering class solidarity
against individual isolationism. The groups found, discovered or
fabricated common ethnic heritages and found the enemy within to
be those who did not share these characteristics. The community
was sewn together with the fabric of tradition, custom, language,
religion and culture. Those not possessing these group
characteristics were different, hence evil, the cause of the
problems of state.
The fascist movements exhibited essentially lower-middle
class values. They viewed the upper strata of society as being
run by those who shared other, often foreign, values. They found
that the values that the upper classes created were foreign,
non-traditional, liberal-value relative, and removed from their
kind. Where foreigners made up a goodly portion of the upper
strata, or where natives were socialized to foreign,
internationalistic or non-traditional value systems, the lower
and lower-middle class groups were treated as merely tributary
classes in their own nation.
Fascist movements as nationalistically oriented parties were
most distrustful of international communism. The short-lived Bela
Kun regime in Hungary had, through its excesses, put real fear in
the hearts of many. Fascism often became a convenient stopover
point for militant anti-communists. Communism was often
associated with Judaism because many of the communist leaders
were Jews. Thus, traditional Christian anti-Semitism was combined
in fascism with political anti-Semitism in anti-communist
crusades.
Fascism often offered elitist movements which spun off the
ordinary fascist parties and which were dedicated strongly or
exclusively to fundamentalist religion. Such movements lost
virtually all ties with the real world of politics and spent
their time and effort on frequently quite bizarre religious
practices. The tie here is most clear in Roumania and in Hungary,
but such elitist fascist religious organizations were known to
exist on the fringes of most fascist movements.
Many fascist movements looked fondly backwards to a former
period of alleged accomplishment. The members had liked simpler
times with less demanding schedules and ideals. Fascism often
became a kind of telescope through which one could look behind
him and enjoy the blessings of medieval society. The prospects of
a highly industrialized society frightened many fascists,
especially in Central Europe. Fascism there often offered a lower
class rejection of the fragmentation of society brought about by
modernization of industry. A kind of emotional revivalism was
presented against archaic medieval backgrounds, with primitive
displays of symbohsms being offered almost as a rejection of
anything modern.
Against this varied background Italian fascism stood out as
a nearly unique movement. It had no special longing for the past,
for its leaders pointed the way to modernity as the desired road
to be traveled. Italy's future greatness was indeed predicated
upon past greatness, but the future offered a mission quite
different than that performed by Rome. The only similarity was to
be found in the fact that in both the case of Rome and in the
case of fascism, Italy was predestined to lead other nations.
While it would have been more than possible for Italy to
have spent much time and effort on the past, it had no inordinate
preoccupation with past glories. To be certain, the symbol of the
"fasces" had Roman roots, but the doctrine that stood behind
Mussolini's fascism was thoroughly modern. Mussolini gloried in
past cultural and artistic accomplishments, with Italy's role as
creator of art types, but he sought futuristic fascist art as the
way of the future.
Anti-Semitism was virtually unknown in fascist Italy, at
least before the Second World War. Italy as a nation before
fascism was one of the least anti-Semitic nations of Europe. It
had little racial prejudice of any type. In the third phase of
fascism there was some anti-Semitic literature associated with
the regime, but that was never incorporated into the ideology in
the way racism became a part of Nazism or many of the East
European fascist movements. While there was ample reason why
anti-foreign sentiments might have developed, given Italy's long
occupation by a variety of foreign powers and her late
achievement of nationhood, this did not become an important
integral part of the ideology.
Religion did become an important consideration in Italian
fascism, but, again, in a way unlike other fascisms. The Roman
Catholic church was dominant in Italy. Mussolini reached an
important accord with the papacy, ending a struggle that had gone
on since Italian reunification. After that the conservative
papacy, seeing in fascism a bulwark against communism,
transferred its loyalty from aristocratic conservatism to
fascism. Mussolini had no plans for a fascist religion as did
many of Nazi Germany's leaders. He was generally content to
accept the recognition of the papacy and had no good reason to
break the generally quiet accord.
Fascist found in several papal encyclicals apparent
justification and support for fascist doctrines. The denunciation
of liberalism in Rerum Novarum (1891) seemed to justify
subsequent fascist doctrine. Pope Leo XIII[36] and Pope Pius
XI[37] had both denounced communism,[38] and, generally,
socialism, while praising the interventionist state and
capitalism. They had called, especially Pius XI in Quadragesimo
Anno (1931), for control over the unions and moral responsibility
in the application of economic laws and principles. The call by
Pius XI for worker-employer confederations seemed to justify the
corporate state. The call for rebuilding society along the lines
of harmonizing social-producers classes again seemed directed at
the syndicalist organization of fascism. Superfluous income could
be redirected by the state. The intervention on behalf of the
very poor according to principles of charity but by the state and
not just by individuals again seemed tailor made for fascism's
practices. With socialism proscribed by papal decree fascism
offered one viable alternative for the proletariat to the liberal
state which had failed it.
The great enemy of Italian fascism was liberalism. There
would, of course, have been no fascism without liberalism, but
nonetheless fascism found in liberalism the antithesis of the
needs of the working class. It was nineteenth century
"laissez-faire" liberalism that was objected to, not the
contemporary interventionist liberalism. Since liberalism had
originated in France there was a certain measure of Italian
national pride involved in the out of hand rejection. Still,
there were other, far graver errors associated with liberalism
that caused the fascist state to regard it so bitterly. Virtually
every evil modern society was associated with it.
Liberalism offered no place for the individual who wished to
join with his fellow men in fraternal association. Liberalism was
atomistic, meaning that it isolated men from one another,
forbidding cooperation and association. Liberalism placed man
higher than the state so that the state ultimately was
subordinate to the individual. It denied the organic nature and
structure of the state.
Liberalism supported democracy. It was thought that a
liberal democracy was inherently the most unstable form of
government that man could create. The Italian flirtation with
democracy had been short and it had been a very unfortunate
experience. The majority of Italians were not enfranchised; among
those who were there existed, for the formative years, a papal
prohibition on political participation owning to the fact that
the papacy was most displeased at the seizure of papal lands and
other properties during the unification. Democracy had been
blamed for all the failures of the infant republic. It had never
served the agrarian interests of the Southern rural poor. It had
become the seat of state capitalism, serving large industry and
corporate monopoly. It had failed to accomplish tangible results
in the first world war, even after the machinations of secret
diplomacy. And it had collapsed during the workers strikes in the
immediate post-war period, opening the door for the march on Rome
and the institution of fascism.
Liberal democracy was seen as an anachronism, an unfortunate
vestige of a past epoch. It was impotent to deal with crises of
the modern world. It was made up of many political parties, none
of which could serve the worker, each of which could argue
endlessly over trivial matters without ever reconciling even the
pettiest matters. It functioned satisfactorily so long as there
was nothing to be done and so long as the state was not involved
in crisis. once crisis came the leaders crawled away and the
parliament failed. Such was the political legacy of liberalism.
Liberalism not only fragmented society into isolated
individuals, it encouraged the fragmentation of industry into
bourgeoisis and proletariat. Rather than seeking closer
cooperation between classes in society it acted as a separating
agent. The Marxian analysis of the two classes is nothing more
than natural observation of the consequences of liberalism. Marx
had thought it necessary to wholly reconstruct society after the
liberal state. That was because he was a victim of liberal
ideology. Outside a liberal state a reconstruction of society was
possible without undergoing a Marxian revolution. Thus, Marx was
himself entrapped by the same liberal society he chose to try to
overthrow. Marxism was a product of liberalism, as was any
doctrine which taught the class struggle as culminating in
revolution.
Liberalism was universalist whereas fascism was
nationalistic. The various worldwide movements such as the League
of Nations were the stepchild of liberalism as were pacifist
movements. The spirit of nationalism would be freed only when the
liberal state was destroyed.
Liberalism encouraged monopoly and international cartels.
While fascism was monopolistic itself, it found the same practice
in liberalism to be quite objectionable. The laissez-faire
economy of liberalism produced only monopoly while bringing about
none of the benefits consequent to fascist monopolies.
The Romantic spirit that was part and parcel of liberalism
had its counterpart in fascism. Indeed, the Romanticism of such
writers as Rousseau find much in the way of fulfillment in
fascism. Still, fascism criticized the Romantic spirit as being
too rational, not mythical enough.
Perhaps the most objectionable feature of liberalism, in
fascist terms, was its value relativism. While fascism
entertained some elements of value relativism, it preached, by
and large, value absolutism. In many areas of ethics this meant a
return to Roman Catholic teachings. In other areas the state
merely granted values authoritatively by virtue of its supremacy.
In any case the pragmatic or utilitarian values of especially
English liberalism were rejected. An idea in the fascist state
was absolute today, yesterday and tomorrow. Truth was not an
event that happened to an idea; it was a necessary part of that
idea. There is a paradox here, for fascism was the value of the
twentieth century -having superseded liberalism, the value of the
nineteenth century. Hence, the value of ideologies came to them
in their own epoch and not in another epoch, certainly a
relativist concept.
Fascism sought to create an idea that would be as lasting
and as influential in its own time as liberalism was in its time.
First and foremost it wished to achieve the quality Mazzini had
posited of any system: it must necessarily represent the unity of
thought and action. Action without some sort of doctrine was
useless; and, conversely, doctrine alone without consequent
action was useless. The thought need not be too specific. A
general idea, some sort of dream of the future, some picture of
the new and better world had to precede action. After the action
commenced, a goodly portion of the thought could be made up along
the way. Better to begin action before the ideology is completed
than miss the opportunity for action.
Mussolini expanded that idea of creating while practicing to
include the individual and the nation. The nation need not exist
before nationalist fascism begins to forge the state. Indeed, he
thought of the state as most generally preceding the creating of
a nation. The state could, on its anvil, forge the people of that
state into precisely what it wished them to become.
The contrast with Nazism is obvious. Only with satisfactory
materials could a nation be built, according to Nazi ideology.
Inferior races could never be forged into anything worthwhile, no
matter how great the effort. The national spirit in Nazism exists
within the people, albeit latently. Nazism can only reawaken that
spirit; in could not create it. Only Nordics could ever realize
the Nazi racist dream.[39]
In fascism there is no suggestion of either recruitment of
suitable subjects or of the exclusion of unsuitable ones. The
fascist state could take people as they were given to it and then
make them over according to the desires of the power elite. While
there might still be within the population those who dreamed the
Roman dream and could identify with the Roman spirit of the past,
it was far more important what they should become rather than
what they were at the time of fascist ascension to power.
<cont'd in part 3>
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