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Mussolini's Intellectuals: Fascist Social and Political Thought

Tekijä: A. James Gregor

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Fascism has traditionally been characterized as irrational and anti-intellectual, finding expression exclusively as a cluster of myths, emotions, instincts, and hatreds. This intellectual history of Italian Fascism--the product of four decades of work by one of the leading experts on the subject in the English-speaking world--provides an alternative account. A. James Gregor argues that Italian Fascism may have been a flawed system of belief, but it was neither more nor less irrational than other revolutionary ideologies of the twentieth century. Gregor makes this case by presenting for the first time a chronological account of the major intellectual figures of Italian Fascism, tracing how the movement's ideas evolved in response to social and political developments inside and outside of Italy. Gregor follows Fascist thought from its beginnings in socialist ideology about the time of the First World War--when Mussolini himself was a leader of revolutionary socialism--through its evolution into a separate body of thought and to its destruction in the Second World War. Along the way, Gregor offers extended accounts of some of Italian Fascism's major thinkers, including Sergio Panunzio and Ugo Spirito, Alfredo Rocco (Mussolini's Minister of Justice), and Julius Evola, a bizarre and sinister figure who has inspired much contemporary "neofascism." Gregor's account reveals the flaws and tensions that dogged Fascist thought from the beginning, but shows that if we want to come to grips with one of the most important political movements of the twentieth century, we nevertheless need to understand that Fascism had serious intellectual as well as visceral roots.… (lisätietoja)

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This was a rather deep dive for me. I don't have any familiarity with almost any of the thinkers discussed here. But Gregor certainly seems to the know the territory very well and to give a reasonable and accurate picture. He gives us a history, mostly between the world wars. It's mostly about how the syndicalists moved from Marxist anti-nationalism to a nationalist position, as a result of world war one. What gives a nation its coherence? Some sort of similarity, of sameness. A major theme of Gregor's book is to argue that Fascism, the ideas of the intellectuals in Mussolini's circle, were really anti-racist, and not anti-Semitic. The racism and anti-Semitism that entered into Fascism and into the policies of Mussolini's regime did so because Italy became allied with Nazi Germany for practical reasons. Fascist racism was an accommodation with Nazi racism. Gregor didn't bring up Stalin's alliance with Hitler, not that I can remember. Anyway the Fascists were certainly anti-liberal, against England and France.

Gregor argues at the end of book... well, even at the beginning he argues that most of what people call neo-Fascism, that has nothing to do with Fascism. Yeah, there is racism around... but just because people are racist, that doesn't make them Fascist. Again, Fascism was not fundamentally racist, nothing like how German National Socialism was. This book was published in 2005. It'd be interesting to see what Gregor thinks now. Hmmm. What might a book like Trump's Intellectuals look like. Steve Bannon, maybe Ted Cruz. Are there any kind of intellectuals in the Christian Right? Rushdoony and Dominion Theology... Gregor does discuss at some length how Fascism and the Catholic Church were pretty well aligned... that was another shift from Marxist syndicalism to Fascism, along with nationalism.

Certainly a major component of today's right wing is its anti-intellectualism. Gregor does a good job of showing that Mussolini and Fascism were not anti-intellectual. Gregor mostly portrayed Italian Fascism as mainly growing from Italian roots, though he mentions Hegel repeatedly as an intellectual foundation, along with Marx and Rousseau. But we aren't really shown how the Fascists were responding to intellectual developments outside of Italy during the 1920s and 1930s.... well, there are responses to political developments... the Fascists could see how the Bolsheviks were evolving, and learn from their mistakes... and then the accommodations to Nazi ideas in the late 1930s... but these came not out of intellectual inspiration, but political necessity.

Gregor is quite clear, that this book is quite limited. What it touches on but doesn't investigate in depth - how are ideas and actions related? Today's right wing doesn't seem to have the intellectual coherence of the Italian fascists... Tucker Carlson is no Sergio Panunzio... and yet, in November 2022, it's more than merely possible that the right wing will take over and crush our liberal democracy - the ideal of fair elections may be crushed - how will we get it back? Once we have an authoritarian government.... how will Jordan Peterson and Gary North coordinate policy?

Gregor does a great job of showing the intellectual coherence of Fascist thought and distinguishing it from the incoherence of the racist mobs we face nowadays... but he doesn't give us any real help in understanding our present situation... I imagine he has been surprised by how the authoritarian movement has continued to expand... the soil that nurtures it is quite different than that of the 1920s and 1930s. (

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kukulaj | Feb 19, 2022 |

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Italian Fascism

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Fascism has traditionally been characterized as irrational and anti-intellectual, finding expression exclusively as a cluster of myths, emotions, instincts, and hatreds. This intellectual history of Italian Fascism--the product of four decades of work by one of the leading experts on the subject in the English-speaking world--provides an alternative account. A. James Gregor argues that Italian Fascism may have been a flawed system of belief, but it was neither more nor less irrational than other revolutionary ideologies of the twentieth century. Gregor makes this case by presenting for the first time a chronological account of the major intellectual figures of Italian Fascism, tracing how the movement's ideas evolved in response to social and political developments inside and outside of Italy. Gregor follows Fascist thought from its beginnings in socialist ideology about the time of the First World War--when Mussolini himself was a leader of revolutionary socialism--through its evolution into a separate body of thought and to its destruction in the Second World War. Along the way, Gregor offers extended accounts of some of Italian Fascism's major thinkers, including Sergio Panunzio and Ugo Spirito, Alfredo Rocco (Mussolini's Minister of Justice), and Julius Evola, a bizarre and sinister figure who has inspired much contemporary "neofascism." Gregor's account reveals the flaws and tensions that dogged Fascist thought from the beginning, but shows that if we want to come to grips with one of the most important political movements of the twentieth century, we nevertheless need to understand that Fascism had serious intellectual as well as visceral roots.

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