Italian Fascism: Between Politics and History

At an international level the study of Italian Fascism has always suffered from being overshadowed by its two contemporary rivals – Nazism and Stalinism. Considered less 'serious' than its competitors, Italian Fascism has often been reduced to 'Mussolinism' – and from there the road to ridicule and dismissal has frequently been short. Within Italy, until recently locked in what increasingly looked like a Cold War ideological time-warp, the history of Fascism and the exigences of contemporary politics have been intertwined in a way detrimental to both.  Casting themselves as victims of a violent and repressive regime, Italians in 1945 embarked on a path of self-pardon which, over the decades, became collective (but selective) amnesia. This attitude was challenged in the 1970s by Renzo De Felice's politically very uncorrect assertion that there had been a widespread consensus for the regime among Italians. Implicitly an invitation to Italians to re-read the fascist period, the assertion provoked immediate division along ideological lines and for a period served, paradoxically, to stifle fresh debate within Italy on the workings of Fascism. More recently, the waters have calmed, and important new work has been produced – often by non-Italians – on various novel aspects of fascist social and cultural policy, sometimes drawing its inspiration from new methodologies, on fascist institutions, and (very importantly) on the almost completely forgotten fascist colonial experience.  Renewed emphasis is now placed on the coherence of fascist ideology and the seriousness of the regime's totalitarian pretensions, suggesting the Italy, at least as far as intentions were concerned, was very far from being the 'poor relation' among twentieth century totalitarianisms.