The story of Mussolini’s rise to
power, and also the relevant facts of his general biography, are little known to
the general practitioners of modern political science. I am afraid that he is
not taken seriously by those whose job is to take such things seriously. Pity!
Why is Mussolini so terribly
important? Because he was a timely response to that part of timeless human
nature that demands a Mussolini at a time when all other answers fail, just when
nations great and small demand an answer. Today’s America, today’s Europe, and
other countries of the free world, all experience a severe crisis of leadership,
feeling nostalgic for the leader principle at almost any cost. That’s why Mussolini
is so glaringly important today. That’s why he must be studied to the minutest
detail, and it’s such a great shame that such a study is so outrageously wanting!
Am I making my point clear? Each
and every great power of today is explicitly or implicitly in search of a
Mussolini. Some have already found him, others continue shopping, against all
myopic odds.
That reminds me of the story of
Field Marshal von Hindenburg, the last President of the Weimar Republic. At the
time of Hitler’s political ascendancy, in the early 1930’s, Hindenburg was
strongly advised to assume dictatorial powers, to prevent Hitler’s otherwise
unstoppable rise to power. The old soldier, who had previously amply exhibited
strong dictatorial tendencies, refused to suspend the Weimar Constitution. He
chose democracy, and Hitler was the answer.
Benito Mussolini was Italy’s democratic answer to her woes… Mussolini
is a better example than Hitler, in the sense that his rise cannot be explained
away by the world’s Great Depression.
Don’t tell me that he imposed
himself on Italy on the crest of the Great War, and obviously we are not at war
on that scale today, or are we? Terrorism, with its ISIS, or Al Qaida, or
whatever, is scaring people, of course, but can we seriously call it a war? Had
it been a real war, I bet the world would have defeated ISIS and the rest of
them a long time ago, leaving the cleaning up of the mess to police action.
Indeed, we do not have a World
War III today, at least not yet, but the people’s anxiety, “rumors of war,”
supported by a lethal rash of minor wars in the Middle East and elsewhere,
still running amok with a vengeance in the twenty-first century, no end in sight,
and effectively tracing back to the destabilization of the world in the wake of
the disintegration of the USSR, has matched and probably raised the anxiety of
World War I, that had given rise to Mussolini.
This is truly a key point of mine
that the source of all problems of the past, leading to the two world wars, as
well as of the present, leading to only God knows what, is the disruption of
the status quo, the upsetting of the balance of power in the world, the
rapacious desire of some to take advantage of it and the pathetic incompetence
of others to remedy the situation getting out of control.
So that there is no
misunderstanding, Russia is not at fault here, in my firm judgment. If one can
blame the Russians for anything, it is for kowtowing to the West after the fall
of the Soviet Union. It was the West who wished to rub Russia’s nose in the
dung, gloating over the perceived demise of the erstwhile super-adversary,
failing to understand that even though Russia had fallen, she would surely get
up with a sense of great disappointment in the nobility of her rival, at that.
It goes without saying that the
West had never attempted to correct the unimaginable wrong. All those pats on
the shoulder and other gestures of utter condescension were contributing to the
damage already done. The old lesson of Japan, whose humiliating “friendship”
with the US had resulted in Pearl Harbor, had never been learned. The big
difference is that Japan was eventually militarily defeated, whereas with
Russia the same thing cannot work.
Russia does not need America’s
friendship. She would rather aspire to the title of America’s “noble enemy” (to
use Nietzsche’s expression). Indeed, great powers can never be sincere friends.
They have too many conflicts of interest to be friends. To put this in even
starker terms, there can be no friendship between great powers. It is honest
rivalry at best, or subservience of the weaker to the stronger, which puts the
whole issue of greatness of the weaker side (the United Kingdom, Germany, etc.)
into question.
Russia is unquestionably a great
power, a superpower, if this term still has any meaning. In other words, the
only thing Russia needs from America is respect. The Russians had American
respect during the Cold War, but none in the last quarter of a century. The
outcome of this injustice is predictable, once we show our capacity to think
rationally and study diligently the lessons of the past. It is most
unfortunate, though, that respect can only be possible from people who
understand the meaning of this word. A proponent of world hegemony, having not
too much to show for it, cannot be expected to own up to this qualification…
This is why the Mussolini lesson
is so important. After all, we are dealing here with the DNA of the great Roman
Empire. Do not dismiss Italy on the mere account of her falling from historical
greatness.
To be continued…
No comments:
Post a Comment