The informative Mussolini sketch
continues, with my comments in red.
Mussolini’s
Fascist state, established a decade before Hitler’s rise to power in Germany,
would provide the model for Hitler’s future economic and political strategies.
Both a movement and a historical phenomenon, Italian Fascism was, in many
respects, an adverse reaction to both the apparent failure of laissez-fairism
in economics and fear of international Bolshevism (a short-lived Soviet was
established in Bavaria just about then), although trends in intellectual
history such as the breakdown of positivism and the general fatalism of postwar
Europe were also factors. Fascism was a product of a general feeling of anxiety
and fear among the middle-class of postwar Italy, arising out of a convergence
of interrelated economic, political, and cultural pressures. Italy had no
long-term tradition of parliamentary compromise and the public discourse took
on an inflammatory tone on all sides. (The
reference to “international Bolshevism” in this paragraph needs to be properly
understood. With the establishment of the Soviet power in Russia, a
continuation of the revolution would have been suicidal for the new system.
“Bolshevism for export” would from now on become Trotsky’s brand, very
successfully marketed at that. Let us not underestimate the successes of
Trotskyism in modern times, not just limited to the Third World, but very
prominent in Western Europe and even to a larger extent in the United States.)
Under
the banner of this authoritarian and nationalist ideology Mussolini was able to
exploit fears regarding the survival of capitalism in an era, in which postwar
depression, the rise of the militant left, and a feeling of national shame and
humiliation, stemming from its mutilated victory at the hands of the
World War I peace treaties, seemed to converge. Italian role in the Aegean and
abroad seemed impotent and disregarded by the greater powers, and Italy lacked
colonies. Such unfulfilled nationalistic aspirations tainted the reputation of
liberalism and constitutionalism among many sectors of the Italian population.
In addition, such democratic institutions had never grown to become firmly
rooted in the young Nation-State. And, as the same postwar depression
heightened the allure of Marxism among an urban proletariat even more disenfranchised
than its continental counterparts, fear regarding the growing strength of trade
unionism, communism, and socialism, proliferated among the elite and the middle
class.
In a
way, Benito Mussolini filled a vacuum. (Obviously,
the question of tags – socialism, communism, or fascism – was not as important
as the question of personality, according to the leader principle. Mussolini
was a colorful, charismatic, smart leader, and he shot up to the top on the
strength of those qualities.)
Fascism
emerged as a “third way,” as Italy’s last hope to avoid an imminent collapse of
weak Italian liberalism or communist revolution. While failing to
outline a coherent program, it evolved into a new political and economic
system, which combined corporatism, totalitarianism, nationalism, and
anti-communism in a state designed to bind all classes together under a
“capitalist” system, but a new capitalist system, in which the State seized
control of the organization of all vital industries. The appeal of this
movement, the promise of a more orderly capitalism during an era of interwar
depression, was not isolated to Italy, or even to Europe alone. (What Mussolini introduced in Italy was state capitalism.
Make no mistake, at the heart of it, state capitalism is hardly what people
call capitalism, and in a basic sense, those who call it socialism have a good
point.)
At first
Mussolini was supported by Liberals in parliament. With their help he
introduced a strict censorship and altered the methods of election so that in
1925-26 he was able to assume dictatorial powers and dissolve all other
political parties. Skillfully using his absolute control over the press he
gradually built up the legend of Il duce, a man who never slept, was
always right, and could solve all problems of politics and economics. Italy was
soon a police state. The 1924 assassination of the prominent Socialist Giacomo
Matteotti began a political crisis in Italy, which did not end until the
beginning of 1925, when Mussolini asserted his personal authority over both the
country and the Party, and established a personal dictatorship. But his
propaganda skill was such that he had surprisingly little opposition to suppress.
(By its basic logic, totalitarianism presupposes
a one-party system and the cult of the leader. People join the one Party to
show their support of a cohesive State, free from internal conflicts
presupposed by the multi-party system. It must be stressed again and again that
the totalitarian system offers its citizens stability and security in return
for political diversity and personal freedom. The ruin of both the Mussolini
regime in Italy and the Hitler regime in Germany was ironically Hitler’s war
against the USSR, which more than anything else put together led them both to
utter defeat. Ironically, Franco’s fascist regime in Spain would survive World
War II only due to Franco’s reluctance to commit himself to Hitler’s military
adventurism, the lethal mistake made by an otherwise reluctant Mussolini.)
To be continued…
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