Robert O. Paxton's The Anatomy of Fascism is rightly considered one of the best works examining the make-up of far right ideology. Paxton (who has wriRobert O. Paxton's The Anatomy of Fascism is rightly considered one of the best works examining the make-up of far right ideology. Paxton (who has written extensively on the history and politics of Vichy France) focuses primarily on Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, the two most successful fascist movements, and how their ideology functioned in both theory and practice. Fascism, as a right wing populist movement, often co-opted the anti-Establishment rhetoric of the Left (most notably in Mussolini's early tirades against capitalism and the Catholic Church) to gain popular support while making clear that their principal enemies were on the Left. Few distinctions are drawn between communists who sought the destruction of society, socialists who advocated substantial reforms or weak-kneed liberals who permitted the former to exist, at the expense of the country's strength and virility; all are enemies of the state. Thus when Hitler and Mussolini found themselves in proximity to power, they courted rather than spurned industrialists, church leaders, the military and middle class, forging alliances that raised them into office. It's a counterfeit populism that mobilizes the Masses (or at least the chosen Masses) in favor of reactionary ends. But neither is fascism strictly conservative, as it (nominally) elevates the middle classes and places race and party loyalty above considerations of capital, church and birthright.
If nothing else, Paxton can be credited for reconsidering the hoary old totalitarian framework, which too often depicts fascism and communism as two sides of the same coin. What animates fascism, instead of a socialist vision of proletarian revolution, is a militarist nationalism that leads, almost inevitably, to imperialist war; the Party's promised a grievance against enemies of the People, both internal and external, often defined by race or religion; a sense that those in power are under threat, if not actively oppressed, by their victims; that the law is secondary to the needs of the movement; and that violence is always justified by invisible, but omnipresent enemies conspiring against the government. Not all of these mindsets are unique to fascism, of course; students of communism could find some, or all of these precepts practiced in Soviet Russia and other leftist regimes. But the fact that fascism coopts the system for its own ends, rather than working to replace it, remains a fundamental distinction. The racist mass murders of fascism and the brutal wages of Soviet collectivization can be equated in body counts, but not ends or even means.
Paxton wisely eschews the psychosexual analyses of fascism's appeal which some, mostly left-wing writers still entertain. Nor does he view fascism merely as the tool of hyper-capitalism, another pat explanation that's lingered despite. My one objection to Paxton's arguments is that, while he notes that successful fascist governments rarely bothered with ideological purity, he dismisses governments like Francoist Spain as insufficiently fascist by his criteria. It's true that Franco downplayed the Phalange's influence on his government soon after his seizure of power, and that his regime became largely indistinguishable from a standard authoritarian state. On the other hand this struck the present reader as he very pragmatism he discusses elsewhere; it seems no more to void Franco's connection to fascism than the Night of the Long Knives meant that Hitler wasn't a true Nazi. But this is a relatively minor quibble, in context. Paxton provides a valuable, well-considered framework for assessing the Far Right, allowing us to draw our own connections between the Axis Powers and their modern counterparts; that while Fascism rarely metastasizes into full-on genocide, its roots and ideas remain powerful and dangerous. ...more
John Patrick Diggins' Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America provides a fascinating study of the Italian dictator's reception and reputation in John Patrick Diggins' Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America provides a fascinating study of the Italian dictator's reception and reputation in America. Upon seizing power in 1922, Mussolini was embraced by a disturbing number of Americans, for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the nationalist pride of Italian-Americans is easy to understand; they viewed the Duce as reviving their homeland's fortunes and prestige, with the more fanatical among them forming bomb- and punch-throwing Blackshirted militia groups in New York, Philadelphia and elsewhere in emulation of their hero. Others, like conservatives (like the American Legion, whose director compared his followers to the squadistri) who respected Mussolini's anticommunism or Catholics who appreciated his embrace of the Church (ignoring his earlier anti-clerical rhetoric), can also be grasped, along with the Wall Street executives who viewed an oppressive but orderly Italy as good for business. Less creditable, and far more embarrassing, was the embrace of Mussolini by those who ought have known better: newspapers feted him as an exciting, dynamic figure (the Saturday Evening Post serialized his autobiography with glowing commentary); progressive intellectuals like Lincoln Steffens and Charles Beard viewed him offering a fascinating platform that might redeem the failures of liberal capitalism; even some of Franklin Roosevelt's inner circle, among them NRA director Hugh Johnson, found the Duce captivating. On the other hand, at least some on the Left saw Mussolini as a genuine threat: journalists Dorothy Thompson and George Seldes, radical labor organizer Carlo Tresca, New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. But even these figures, courageous as many of them were, often saw Mussolini through a Marxist lens as the mere tool of industrialists, rather than representing a new and distinctly dangerous ideology.
Such ideologically skewed perspectives undoubtedly impacted how Americans viewed Mussolini, Diggins shows. But also playing their part were old-fashioned stereotypes. To Anglo-Saxon Americans, left and right, Italy was proverbially a nation of clowns and criminals, which either needed a strongman like Mussolini to guide them into the modern world, or deserved him as a manifestation of his excess. The rise of Hitler could be viewed with concern and trepidation, but Mussolini somehow seemed a natural extension of the "Italian character" (even as thousands of Italians were exiled, jailed or killed for opposing him, or Tresca led leftist immigrants in brawls against American fascists). Even as World War II approached, many Americans viewed Italian fascism as a moderating force checking Hitler's expansion. The majority, however, reverted to old stereotypes and dismissed Il Duce as the Fuhrerr's cartoon sidekick, which the incompetence of his military admittedly made easier; but it also ensured that Fascist Italy was never properly held accountable for its atrocities. Diggins' book is unlikely to be read outside of academics and specialists in fascism, but it's well worth diving into for showing how even the most repulsive dictatorships can serve as a Rorschach test - complicating our efforts to confront, understand and learn from them....more
Denis Mack Smith's Mussolini is one of the standard English-language biographies of Il Duce, and with good reason. Smith eschews the sympathetic tone Denis Mack Smith's Mussolini is one of the standard English-language biographies of Il Duce, and with good reason. Smith eschews the sympathetic tone of biographers like Christopher Hibbert or Jasper Ridley, who view Mussolini either as a witless clown in over his head or, more bizarrely, a tragic figure compared to the monstrous Hitler. Smith focuses heavily on Mussolini's background as a mercurial radical, shifting from far left to far right before World War I steeled his resolve as a reactionary, and how he took advantage of frustration over Italy's "mutilated victory" in that war and the weakness of the liberal government in Rome to install himself in power. Smith shows that Mussolini was a brilliant propagandist whose journalistic background enabled him to manipulate the public and his fellow politicians, despite his essential shallowness. Aside from Adrian Lyttleton's The Seizure of Power, I'm hard-pressed to think of a work that handles Mussolini's early years better: his control remained precarious until the Left's refusal to confront him over Matteotti's murder allowed him to solidify absolute dictatorship. While his squadrisiti terrorized the public into acquiescence, Mussolini tried and discarded economy and domestic policies with amateurish abandon. But Mussolini's passion, ultimately, was renewal of national character through war: hence his farcical, but bloody imperial adventures in Ethiopia, Libya and Eastern Europe, which showcased hweakness and cruelty rather than strength and civilization. By the time Mussolini embraced Hitler and rushed his country into the maelstrom of World War II, he had already all but wrecked it through his incompetence and reckless policies. An excellent biography....more
Lucy Hughes-Hallett's The Pike is a bizarre, frustrating quasi-biography of Gabriele D'Annunzio, the flamboyant novelist, playwright, adventurer and GLucy Hughes-Hallett's The Pike is a bizarre, frustrating quasi-biography of Gabriele D'Annunzio, the flamboyant novelist, playwright, adventurer and Godfather of Italian fascism. "Quasi" because it doesn't really take the form of a biography: the book is more a thematic exploration of different aspects of D'Annunzio's life, though it's clear which ones interest the author most. We're treated to endless descriptions of D'Annunzio's love life, from his famous romance with singer Eleanora Druse to a million other, lesser liaisons, from Paris to Fiume. Hughes-Hallett seems to revel in recounting the drug-fueled debauchery of D'Annunzio's private life, though readers may find it less congenial or helpful in understanding his character. We're treated to intermittent smatterings of his writings, though mostly how they reflect upon his insatiable appetites; some discussion of his friendships with European literary figures, though they feel insubstantially explored. The book does come to life when Hughes-Hallett takes in D'Annunzio's momentous rise as a demagogue, from his military service in World War I to his avenging the "mutilated victory" by seizing the port of Fiume with a private army. Ultimately D'Annunzio is eclipsed by Mussolini, who apes the writer's style and rhetoric but weds it to a (somewhat) more coherent political program and pushes his mentor out of the spotlight. The book can't help be interesting in parts, but it's so rambling, poorly-organized and obsessed with D'Annunzio's amatory adventures that it's hard to recommend. For a real understanding of what made this bizarre yet consequential figure tick, readers are advised to look elsewhere....more
Piers Brendon’s The Dark Valley provides a detailed, kaleidoscopic view of the 1930s, that momentous decade which began with the Great Depression and Piers Brendon’s The Dark Valley provides a detailed, kaleidoscopic view of the 1930s, that momentous decade which began with the Great Depression and ended with World War II. Between lie a cavalcade of colorful personalities and momentous, world-rending events: fascism’s rise in Germany and Italy, Stalin’s purges in the Soviet Union, Japanese militarism, Spanish Civil War, American social engineering and British Royal scandals, appeasement and complacency. Brendon’s book is hardly groundbreaking in tackling these subjects; his book makes heavy use of secondary sources and rarely challenges the conventional narrative. But there’s something be said for presenting old wine in colorful new bottles, and Brendon’s book is endlessly readable. His pen portraits of the era’s heavyweights (FDR and Leon Blum, Churchill and Chamberlain, Hitler and Mussolini, Stalin and Hirohito) are lively and convincing, using their personalities and actions to chart the world’s slide into madness. As in his The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, Brendon displays a novelist’s eye for telling, colorful anecdotes that alternately humanize and ridicule his subjects: from Edward VIII’s coronation interrupted by a mishap with the crown jewels to Stalin enjoying imitations of his victim’s deaths, Hitler gulping mineral water during his speeches and Italian fascists raving about the evils of pasta. Alongside these Great (or not-so-great) Men are accounts of American soup kitchens, French labor unrest, inmates of Soviet gulags and Nazi concentration camps, Japanese war crimes in China, poorly-armed Ethiopians futilely resisting Mussolini’s tanks and poison gas. Brendon proves most angry detailing the British ruling class’s appeasement of and sympathy towards fascism, a well-worn topic but worth revisiting in the age of revisionism: he explodes the recent idea that Chamberlain’s appeasement was intended merely to buy time for rearmanent, rather that he and his fellow policymakers had no real qualms with Hitler’s designs the Fuhrer boxed him into a corner. (In contrast, Brendon strongly defends Churchill for his opposition to Hitler, while acknowledging his obtuseness on Indian independence, the gold standard and his defense of Edward VIII.) It was a decade with innumerable problems and few easy solutions: but, Brendon convincingly argues, the men charged with solving them were at best derelict, at worst complicit. The toll of fifty million dead and two continents laid waste make it hard to argue....more
Superficial biography of Benito Mussolini. Hibbert's portrait seems curiously sympathetic to Il Duce, skimming over his regime's actions (Ethiopia getSuperficial biography of Benito Mussolini. Hibbert's portrait seems curiously sympathetic to Il Duce, skimming over his regime's actions (Ethiopia gets a page, the long guerrilla war in Libya nothing) and ideology (his economic policies, a few scattered paragraphs) while presenting Mussolini as a strong-willed, arrogant, erratic but largely well-meaning dictator. Other major figures drift aimlessly through the narrative: Marshal Balbo, Mussolini's chief military advisor and rival, is mentioned frequently, but Hibbert doesn't even mention his suspicious death early in WWII. After rushing through the balance of Mussolini's life, Hibbert devotes nearly half the book to Mussolini's life after losing power - thus, two years takes up as much of the book as the previous sixty. Of English-language volumes, more recent books by R.J.B. Bosworth, Christopher Duggan - heck, George Seldes's old Sawdust Caesar - give much better portraits of Fascist Italy and its mercurial ruler....more
Remarkable book detailing life under Benito Mussolini's Fascist government. Duggan draws from diaries, letters and private correspondence to detail thRemarkable book detailing life under Benito Mussolini's Fascist government. Duggan draws from diaries, letters and private correspondence to detail the upheaval wrought by Mussolini's reign. He shows Mussolini's appeal rested on several pillars: Italian nationalism frustrated since Garibaldi's Risorgimento; a "sick," barely functioning democracy; Italy's disastrous performance in World War I and diplomatic "betrayal" at Versailles. By Duggan's account, Mussolini was the right man in the right time, charismatic, decisive and a master of image. And as he shows, most Italians stood by Il Duce until the consequences of his autarchist, imperialist New Order became inescapable. Duggan may be faulted for downplaying Fascism's cultural and economic sides, but it's otherwise an incredibly balanced, nuanced work....more
This book first appeared in 1935, when many westerners (liberal and conservative alike) regarded Mussolini as a possible role model. Seldes' critical This book first appeared in 1935, when many westerners (liberal and conservative alike) regarded Mussolini as a possible role model. Seldes' critical volume provided a valuable corrective. Seldes, an American journalist, meticulously documents Fascist Italy's failings, from its inept policies and incoherent ideology to its brutal repression and imperial adventures. Most of Seldes' opprobrium lands on Mussolini, neither the romantic strongman nor comic opera buffoon but an ambitious street thug elevated to power. Still worth reading, if only for the reminder that Hitler's junior partner was a monster in his own right....more
R.J.B. Bosworth's Mussolini's Italy offers a sweeping sociopolitical look at Europe's first fascist state. Bosworth examines the trends and currents iR.J.B. Bosworth's Mussolini's Italy offers a sweeping sociopolitical look at Europe's first fascist state. Bosworth examines the trends and currents in modern Italy that laid the groundwork for its slide to fascism: a chauvinist nationalism undimmed since the Risorgimento, along with a desire (even a psychological need) to find a place among the world's powers; a precarious democracy easily undercut by extremist politics, regional cleavages and reactionary distrust; the ghastly experience of World War I, which Italy entered for no good reason, suffered incredibly and gained almost nothing despite picking the winning side. Enter Benito Mussolini, a one-time socialist who sweeps aside paltry opposition, co-opts Italy's conservative, anti-republican institutions and turns them into a one-party state. Seizing power was easier than holding it; unlike Hitler or Stalin, Mussolini never felt entirely comfortable imposing himself on Italy, preferring compromise and propaganda to brute force, while never really articulating a national program beyond a vague sense of racial destiny. Bosworth's book is instructive in showing how indifferent many Italians were to Mussolini's regime; he also shows that, despite its reputation as Germany's benign, bungling partner in WWII, Italy committed more than its share of brutalities; hundreds of thousands perished in its colonial wars in Africa and a comparable number during its wartime occupation of the Balkans. The picture of Fascist Italy that emerges is complex: intermittently savage but erratically effective, unable to truly transform Italy's society and people while leaving its politics indelibly stained. A fascinating portrait of an overlooked dictatorship....more
Christopher
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