-Caveat Lector-
Italian Fascism: An Interpretation
<cont'd>
Since nothing eludes the fascist state, its power must
necessarily extend to the creation of a superior race.
It was the ideology, the doctrine of fascism, that would
make of the race a people fit to control a substantial share of
the earth. The vitality of the race would be shown by its works
and deeds rather than by its genetic purity and its physical
characteristics. A manufactured nation would enjoy power and
prestige; one that had not been properly articulated could not
enjoy the fruits of expansionism. If the state has done its job
properly its race will show an aggressive foreign policy. Its
art, drama, music and literature will show an ideologically
motivated vitality that can be appreciated only if observed.
The people inhabiting a given geographical area are a nation
after they have been motivated and inspired by the ideological
fascist state. Their nationhood is then not a natural but an
artificial construct, one superimposed on them from above by a
charismatic leader and his fascist party. Thus the state is
fully empowered to educate its people, to offer them propaganda,
to indoctrinate them fully, and to persuade them by force if
necessary. It is charged with maintaining ideological purity and
with spreading that orthodoxy. This is the civilizing mission of
the state.
The state must provide enriching experiences for its
members. Inasmuch as each individual is unique he must be
fulfilled by offering him opportunities to develop his unique
nature. The state must make him subservient to the state, its
party and its leaders, but it must also enrich his life. While in
the final analysis the individual lives to serve the state, it is
equally important that the fully socialized citizen be given as
many opportunities as he can utilize. Without individualizing
experiences as offered by the state there would be no meaningful
way for the individual to be differentiated from all other
persons in the state. The uniqueness of the fascist state is to
no small extent dependent upon the gathering in of the unique and
individualizing experiences of its various members.
By offering him help in self-fulfillment, the state has
helped to create the individual. By indoctrinating him with the
ideology with which to approach outside phenomena, it has made
him in its own image. For the fascist, the state has the
obligation, while performing its social, political, and economic
functions, to create the individual person. It must teach him the
values established authoritatively by the state. It must
strengthen the virtues of man. It must provide him with a world
view. It must teach him to reject such alien values as move him
from the state. He and every other individual must be inside the
state, not against it nor outside it. He and all other persons
make up the living body of the organic state.
The state is properly viewed as a real organic being.[40] It
is not only like any other organic being; it is a living
organism. It has a life all its own. It undergoes various
experiences, including happiness, sorrow, joy, melancholy, ectasy
and the like. It is born out of the ideas of men and their
courage in culminating the act of creation. It matures to
adulthood. It can become ill and it can die. All other beings
living within the state help to comprise it. Some parts die and
others are born to replenish the needs of the state. The state
can show courage, especially in an aggressive foreign policy; it
can also show cowardice in the face of its enemies. Since the
state is primary its life is far and away more important than the
lives of the individuals who are its component parts. Like
individuals it can create art, drama, poetry, music and
literature as a national characteristic.
There is a spirit, a motivating factor, placed in the state
much like the soul is for man. One can really speak of the
"Italian national spirit" as being something actual, real and
existing. Take away the spirit and the body public dies. Give the
state a healthy spirit and its accomplishments can be almost
without limits.
The organic analogy offered by fascism is very important
because it tells something of the individual's role in the state.
Ideally, the individual cannot consider himself independent of
his fascist state. He is completely immersed in his state. It
would be unthinkable, inconceivable to be outside the state. When
an individual posits his existence, he is positing the existence
of his state simultaneously. The fascist state offers the only
possible existence for him. The individual without the state
would not exist. The individual and his fascist state are
inseparable.
Fascist ideology articulates the reason for the individual's
being. It is his source of legitimacy. It is his home, his
patria, his source of thoughts and ideas. An anti-state thought
is impossible.
When his state accomplishes something he is proud. When his
state suffers so does each individual. Creations of the state
give the individual national pride which is itself inseparable
from pride in self. The state's ideology is his own. He accepts
no other state or ideology. The fascist party is legitimate
because it is interconnected with the state. It guards the
ideology and offers an orthodoxy which makes the individual
orthodox.
The party is supreme and allows no competition. As the
bearer of the ideological orthodoxy[41] it has an historical
mission. It cannot tolerate public factionalism or party
disputes. It cannot legitimately allow power to pass out of its
hands, say, to the army or the bureaucracy. The fascist party is
the sole agent of secular redemption; it is the guardian of the
future and the protector of the past. It thus has an unquestioned
right to an absolute monopoly of power. The party monopoly of
power is not a part of fascist ideology, but it is the most
important inference from it.
Since the fascist state remained Roman Catholic and did not
attempt to eradicate organized religion it did not create a rival
religion. To be certain, as a carryover from the days of the
reunification there was some anti-clericalism, but its effect was
negligible on the ideology. Therefore, the fascist party's role
as the agent of secular redemption and secular salvation was not
nearly so important as it was in Nazism. The emphasis on a
perfect society was less than that of Nazism. It wished to
produce the good society, but disdained the possibilities of the
perfect society. The inordinate emphasis on the perfect society
was one of the fallacies of communism. There was no teleolgy in
fascism as there was in Nazism and communism.
Fascism did propound a theory of a nearly infallible
leader. The cult of the personality was as well developed in
Italy as it was in Germany. The word "Duce" was roughly the
equivalent of "Fuehrer." It was this charismatic figure who had
created the fascist movement and who was destined to lead it to
the final victory. He was the choice of the deity, the man of
destiny. Through his personal intervention history had been
changed and given a new direction. His movement was one of the
great accomplishments of mankind. In Italy this rhetoric failed
to find deep roots, for "Il Duce" was fired by his own Grand
Fascist Council when his movement collapsed along with the
Italian army on the field of battle.
As long as the leader remained in power he spoke with a
single voice of authority for his nation. Fascism never conceived
of an oligarchy or a democracy governing. It is rather pointless
to speculate about what the death of Mussolini might have
brought, provided fascism lived after him, for every fascist
movement has risen and fallen with its single leader. Surely
another leader would have risen to the position of "Il Duce."
Fascism required that the party be led by a single individual who
could, by sheer force of will, decide all disputes and right all
wrongs. Only a single individual was considered to be the
rightful spokesperson for an entire nation; no combination of
individuals could accomplish this. Where fascist movements have
not come to power they usually die with their charismatic leader.
Where a fascist movement might outlive its leader because he has
brought the movement to power is just a matter of guesswork.
Fascism, as noted above, accepted the idea of violence as a
political tool; indeed, it was one of the most useful tools
available to those seeking political power and those already
possessed of political power. We also noted that fascism
rejected the idea of the class struggle that would culminate in
revolution. The doctrine of violence and the idea of revolution
require additional qualification and explanation.
Mussolini rejected the notion of the warfare between
opposing classes. Following Gaetano Mosca,[42] he did not reject
the possibility of warfare between segments of classes, as
between, say, socialist workers and fascist workers, or between
socialist workers and reactionary strikebreakers hired by
industrial management. These portions of classes were less
guided by ideological considerations than by a natural,
irrational, and generally incomprehensible determinism. Most
frequently portions of classes would clash because they were
seeking identical goals through identical means than because they
were conscious of differences between them.
The determinism of Marxism was found in the class struggle
whereas Mosca[43] and Mussolini found it to be unrelated to any
social struggle. Whatever struggles there may be in society were
determined beyond the powers of man to change or alter. Men
became the pawns of deterministic fate. In the long run, the
politicized portions of all classes struggled with one another in
a predetermined manner for control over the rest of the men in
that state. Hence, fascists could expect, as one political
element or fragment of the classes in Italy, to have to meet
socialists, anarchists and communists, these being other
politicized fragments of the various classes, in open combat.
Violence was thus fully justified, indeed, determined, long ago
and by powers beyond the pale of men to control.
<cont'd in part 4>
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