Ex-fascist Networks in Post-World War II Italy: Giuseppe Bottai and Fascist Legacies in Italian Political Culture

Giuseppe Bottai, arguably the most famous Italian Fascist to survive World War II, returned to Italy in 1947 after spending four years in hiding and exile. A special tribunal of Italy’s fledgling democracy had condemned him to life-in-prison but the Milan Supreme Court overturned the decision, allowing Bottai to resume his life in Rome. Although technically in retirement, Mussolini’s former Minister of Corporations (1929-1931) and of National Education (1936-1943) had developed a reputation by the mid-1950s for critique of Italy’s liberal democracy and attempts to forge a right-wing coalition in parliament. This paper traces Bottai’s journey from high-ranking Fascist in the 1930s to political commentator and consultant in the 1950s, focusing in particular on the network of Fascists and Mussolini-sympathizers that surrounded the former minister. Works on the legacy of Fascism in Italy concentrate primarily on neo-Fascist movements, the memory of Fascism, or continuities in state institutions and personnel. There was a whole class of high-ranking Fascists and their collaborators, however, whose post-World War II stories have remained largely unexamined. Bottai, for his part, maintained connections with many cultural, political, and bureaucratic elites with whom he had worked during the Fascist years. Despite Italy’s transition to a democratic republic, Bottai continued to reap many benefits of having once been a Fascist government minister. His life raises questions about the long-term effects of holding political power, especially in cases of regime change.